One of my late mother’s dreams that never came true for her was for her family to go on a trip together. It was something she was always planning for, but life got in the way as our schedules before and after graduating from university just wouldn’t match. In the end, cancer ruined all those dreams prematurely as she ran out of time when the damned disease took her away from us before she even turned 60 years old.
For almost 15 years, her four children would mention that dream in passing when we talk about her, but we never really did anything about it, as we were busy with our own lives, having all been married and raising our own kids by then. However, last year, we decided to use a bit of the funds that our parents had left with us that had been sitting in a bank, to finally go on a trip together and make our Mama’s dream come true.
In effect, our late parents paid for our airfare to Taipei for a couple of days for their four kids and our spouses. To make it interesting, we made a deal not to bring our kids along.
When we were starting to be independent and were living by ourselves in Metro Manila for either university or work, we used to call ourselves quite ‘Brady’, after a 1970s television series ‘The Brady Bunch’ which although we never saw it, was about a large family that we thought were close. Although we studied in different schools, with campuses ranging from Taft to Diliman and Padre Faura, we would still gather during some weekends, hear mass and have a Sunday meal together. That era of our lives would’ve been the best time to go on a trip with our Mama, but it was our collective fault that we never committed to her idea and didn’t do enough to make time for her dream. We probably thought that we had all the time in the world back then.
When it became obvious that time was something we didn’t have, it was too late and we ended up losing her to cancer.
We remained close as siblings, but life happened, and as each got married and raised our own kids, we never really got to fulfill our Mama’s dream that we all take a trip together. Now that we are nearing the age that she was when she was taken from us, we finally made the decision to get together to go on a trip together. Just the married couples, no kids. Her grandchildren are different ages, and while it was more convenient for those with older kids than those with a younger brood, delaying the project further to a time when it is most convenient for all would just mean it may never happen. So we went ahead and did it. For old times’ sake, for her sake.
We may think we are ‘Brady’ bunch because we don’t have major issues, but we have been living our own lives for around 20 years now, and although we see each other regularly, and despite having both parents pass away early, we still make time to get together a couple of times a year, yet we have never really spent that much time together in a long time. We were no longer the college kids who were on an allowance, but are now titos and titas who were busy adulting. Traveling together was going to be interesting.
All I can say is traveling is an interesting way to get to know people better, even if you literally grew up with them. It is not for everyone, but if the dynamics allow, it is something I’d recommend, especially among adult and married siblings.
We got to see how much we have grown up and changed, yet still have the quirks that we saw growing up together. One example was how interesting it was to see how we tackled moving from one place to another in Taipei, as one couple was looking at the bus/train route, another was considering walking, while another was quietly checking how much an Uber would cost. Our agreement was that we would not pressure each other to see places or do activities, and that we would just eat awesome food and have a blast together as much as possible, but we still ended up flocking as we explored, stumbling around and talked about life and everything under the sun, maybe squabbling a bit, seeing new places, while at the same time waxing nostalgic.
At the end of the quick long weekend trip, we all agreed that we should’ve done it earlier, and even started making plans to do it again, but hopefully this time it won’t take another 15 years.
Ten out of ten, we would do it again.*
