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When I think of family, what comes to mind is the memories I enjoyed while growing up as a child 🧒. The memories from extended families that reminds of why the saying of “Blood is thicker than water” will ever be everlasting, even though times are changing things.

I came from a very big family from my fathers side and my mother side, called “Obi” meaning large family. My father had four immediate brothers who are my uncles and two immediate sisters who are my aunts. And apart from this immediate siblings my father had, he also had other siblings who are not of the same mother with him because my grandfather was a polygamist. In fact, my extended uncles and aunts were like extra ten to fifteen siblings of my father side. But the good thing about this large family is the maintenance of peace due to how well established my grandfather was.

And from my mother’s side, I had about four uncles and three aunties. And I was opportune to have a very good relationship with my mothers family. Being the fifth child of my parents, I will always travel with my mother to about two other villages after my village to visit my grandmother then. And as I write ✍️ this blog, the memories of those days keep coming back to me. And since all of my grandmother’s children were married, they will always plan to visit during Christmas 🎄 as one big family which my siblings and I are not left out from through my mother being involved

So I could say I did had a good relationship with my uncles and aunts both from father’s side and my mother’s side, because coming from a large family helped me to enjoy festivities with my cousins during Easter 🐣 and Christmas 🎄, as we all we siblings and cousins don’t want to miss out during the end of the year get together when we get to bond with each other, visiting our uncles and some times, take out time to visit our aunties who were married far away from our own village and town.

And as time went by , one of my mother’s junior sister who lost her husband early in life asked my parents if I can come to stay with her as a niece because her kids was very small and needed company as they grow up. So I have to leave my family to the northern part of Nigeria 🇳🇬 which gave me the opportunity to also learn how to speak Hausa language so fluently and which has continued to help me up until now as a by linguistic.

What Do I Want For My Children?

Family is always everything even though we have our ups and downs, because in this present generation, I can tell you that my siblings, I and my cousins once in a while has scores to settle which we never saw our parents doing. I mean, I never saw my parents fighting with their siblings or cousins, but this era is a different one. But their will never be peace if there is no fight.

Despite what ever I might have with my siblings and cousins, I have continued to make sure to bring my children so very close to my siblings, cousins and those that are still living from my father’s side and mother’s side. There is nothing like bonding with family and extended family. The issue here is that some day, we will be gone just like our parents has gone, so we must try our best to do the least in any area when it comes to family

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I will want my children to continue to carry on with family bonding because it leads to generation to generation memories and connection. And this can also help us in terms of knowing histories of where we are coming from. My children visits and call their uncles and aunts from time to time , also relating with their children who are their cousins.

In all, family is the people who we will always count on because of the love ❤️ we share. Those who can have our back at any point no matter the scores we have pending to settle. And this is what we have to let our children know. If no one have you back at any time, call your family.

This is my response to the #hiveleaners featured content for week 233, edition 02.

Thanks for visiting and reading friends 🥰

Best Regards @sunshine29 🧡

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