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Birthday & Bonding Blues...

My weekend was spent in Thüringen with my in-laws. It was the 70th birthday of my Mom-in-Law, so almost every member of the family, from the sister, to the cousins, nephews & nieces and their husbands and wives were there as well.

If this get-together with the whole clan happened four years ago, I would have probably, politely excused myself from going there. I didn't want to just smile and sit or stand like a statue just because I couldn't communicate with the rest of the members of the family. But I am so glad it didn't happen then...Besides, my mom-in-law could not have celebrated her 70th birthday four years earlier, right? (hehehe, trying my luck at jokes, which I am quite aware didn't work anyway!)

So off we went to this stadt called Gräfenthal, in Thüringen.

Okay, I know this is supposed to be the birthday celebration entry for my Mom-in-Law, but since I would probably just say, we celebrated it with lots of food, dancing, program, etc., i would rather write more about the bonding which had definitely much impact during the weekend. It's not that I don't like my mom-in-law as much, or that we don't have this bonding time as well. It's just that, I have had much more time talking to her alone than I had with my dad-in-law in the past. Even before I could speak German language, because she can speak English. So here it goes:

When I came to Germany, the first time I met ML's family, it seemed to me that I was ok, not knowing their language, not only because they all tried to speak English to me but also because I didn't consider that we would be living in the same country where his family is. (Tagalog translation: "Hindi naman kami dito sa Alemanlandiya nakatira, so para ano pa na matutnan ko ang salita nila?") My only worry was that my father-in-law can't speak English. So, he would try to say something, and then everybody else who are in the vicinity would try to translate it to me....seeing that I am not amused at his comment which is supposed to be amusing, he then would suddenly just fall back in silence. I remember it happened quite so often that it became embarrassing for me. Silently, I made a vow to myself that I would learn the language...if not for myself, nor for my future kids but for my father-in-law who has a great sense of humor. Weakness ko kasi sa lalaki ito, dahil wala kao nito... hehehehe. Kidding aside though, my father-in-law has been sickly since many, many years back. Thirty something years ago, he was already declared by his physicians that "he would last only less than a year". Now he is seventy years old, still lives, still manages to drop jokes, still looks at life with humorous angle and still goes fishing with his fishing buddies who are still alive and still manages to go with long walks with me and hubby everytime we visit them. He is such strong and lovable person. Actually, quite a wierd choice for adjectives, but that is the only way I can describe him.

When he found out that I enrolled myself to German language lessons, he tried to tell me that it will be difficult, there would be a lot of stress because not everything has an explaination and most of all, that the German language is very, very complicated. (Of course, hubby translated everything to me). That I should just concentrate on learning it and that if I have questions, that I should not hesitate to ask or give them a call anytime for me to be able to practice my very little knowledge of the German language. Before we letf their house during that visit, he made me promise him that I should be able to speak the language after ten years. Not more, coz he was not going to wait longer.

I said to him, I would learn it in five. In ten, I should be able to share jokes and anecdotes with him in his dialect, i said. I learned it in less than five years, I can understand his jokes, his stories and his advices now. Grabe! This weekend, parang nag karoon kami ng special connection, bonding, as if! Kaya for me, blessing that I now speak & know the language, that I could go with hubby to celebrate mom-in-law's birthday, because the weekend didn't turn out to be just a boring birthday celebration where most of the guests are grumpy old grannies, but a celebration of bonding for me and my father-in-law.

Posted by missP at December 1, 2004 11:57 AM