Like many other kids that grew up with immigrant parents, I didn’t grow up with a lot of family around. “Family” was confined to my mom, dad and brother.
All other members — still back in the Middle East — I would rarely see and at 22, I have only seen my extended family seven times. Seven times to somehow create this bond that I’m told is the strongest there is. But I don’t really feel any attachment to this family of mine — how could I? In reality, these are people that live vastly different lives than mine and who only see snapshots of my life, and vice versa.
I began to harbour a tremendous sense of guilt associated with not feeling connected to those I was supposed to be most connected with. I find it hard to have meaningful conversations with my grandparents because in reality, I don’t know them and they don’t know me.
Despite advancements which help us stay connected across continents and oceans, it’ll never be the same as having your family over for every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every moment that builds the bonds of family.
With every visit, I find it harder and harder to connect with my family members and develop this bond with a group of people who share the same genes as me, and I wish that wasn’t the case.
I have battled with feeling as though I’m the one who is cold, that I am not trying hard enough, that there is something wrong with me for not feeling closer to my family. But I do feel very close to my family — just not the one that I was born into.
Since my immediate family was regionally isolated from ‘real’ extended family members, we created our own. Family friends — mostly other immigrants who were missing the same extended family as I did — became my adopted family, and I would call these people my aunts and uncles.
These were the people that watched me grow up.
My adopted aunts, uncles and godparents were the ones who came to every Thanksgiving dinner. The ones who cheered me on at every school play, dance recital and graduations. They were there for every milestone in my life, and for the little moments in life that build the bonds of ‘family.’ When I moved away from home, I missed these people just as much as I missed my parents and brother.
I have never missed members of my extended family in the same way because I have grown up accepting — and being comfortable with — their absence.
When I see members of my extended family, I feel overwhelmed with the need to perform a ‘closeness’ to them. It saddens me to think I likely will never feel as though I can go to my ‘real’ family the same way I can with my adopted one. It’s not that I don’t want to feel closer to them, it’s simply that the circumstances of growing up in a different country, a different culture, inhibit my ability to form those connections.
The bonds of genetics don’t automatically turn into the bonds of family in the broader sense of the term.
One of the main consequences of immigration is the loss of opportunity to form those familial bonds, but it creates an opportunity to form new ones. I’ve realized that the meaning of “home” and “family” are often far more complicated than they appear.
I used to think I was worse off for not having my ‘real’ family around, and that I was missing out on the joyous bonds I saw my peers having with their families. But instead, I was able to navigate the complexities that are being an immigrant with people that were going through the same challenges that I was.
For that I don’t feel worse off — I feel grateful to have those I choose to call my family.