I Once Had a Complete Family

I once had a complete family.

At least, that's how I remember it.

It wasn't perfect, but it was complete.

There were my parents, my two younger sisters, aunties, uncles, and, most importantly, my grandmother. We had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and neighborhood kids to play with. My father was often away on business trips. My mother spent much of her time with friends or shopping. My sisters and I went to school together from primary school through high school.

Looking back now, I realize those simple days were the happiest days of my childhood.

Whenever my grandmother came to visit, everything felt different. The house felt warmer. The food tasted better. There was laughter, comfort, and a feeling that everything was going to be okay.

I loved my sisters unconditionally, but when I was a little girl, my grandmother was the person who made our family feel whole.

To this day, she is still the most amazing woman I have ever known.

No one has ever cooked food that tasted better than hers. I loved everything about her, her cooking, her gentle presence, her smile, and the way she loved us. As a child, I secretly wished she would come visit us and never leave.

If someone asked me what a complete family looked like, I would simply describe my grandmother.

With her around, everything felt complete.

As children, my sisters and I were too young to understand many things. But we understood love because she showed it every single time she visited. I never questioned whether she loved us. I could feel it, and that feeling has stayed with me for my entire life.

Sometimes, instead of her coming to us, we traveled to visit her.

She lived in a small town outside Phnom Penh. Today the drive is much shorter, but in the early 1990s, poor roads turned the journey into nearly five hours. If we wanted to visit my great-grandmother too, we continued another three or four hours by oxcart.

Those trips were exhausting. But every mile was worth it.

Seeing my grandmother waiting for us erased every uncomfortable hour of travel.

Then one day, everything changed. I still remember I was told that my grandmother was coming to stay with us.

I was so excited.

I waited by the door, imagining myself running to greet her the moment she arrived.

But when she finally came, she wasn't walking up the stairs. She was being carried.

Two people carefully carried her up to the third floor where we lived. I didn't understand what I was seeing. I was only a little girl, standing quietly by the doorway, watching adults rush around someone who had always seemed so strong.

She was conscious, but she wasn't herself.

It was as if her body was there, but her mind had already gone somewhere else.

She didn't recognize us. She couldn't speak the way she used to. She seemed frightened, confused, and restless. They laid her on a mat on the floor while trying to keep her from hurting herself.

I stood frozen outside the room.

Scared.

Confused.

Unable to understand what was happening.

Then she looked directly at me.

She called my name.

"Hey, Mom," she said.

"Do you want to come play with me?" That sentence has stayed with me for decades. It still is.

I don't remember what I did. I only remember how it felt.

That was the last time I ever saw my grandmother awake.

Soon afterward, she was taken to the hospital. No doctor could explain what had happened to her. My sisters and I were too young to visit. Then one day, we were told she had passed away.

That was the beginning of the end of my complete family.

Our family had never been perfect.

If anything, we were probably one of the most dysfunctional families imaginable.

But my grandmother held us together in ways I didn't understand until I became an adult.

She gave us love when our home often felt filled with fear.

She gave us warmth when life felt lonely.

She gave us comfort when everything else felt uncertain.

With her, there was always something to look forward to.

Maybe she would visit us soon.

Maybe we would travel to see her.

Maybe she would cook our favorite meals.

Maybe everything would feel normal again.

She gave us hope.

When she died, that hope disappeared with her.

The next time I saw my grandmother was at her funeral.

She lay there peacefully.

Still.

Silent.

I was only seven years old (maybe).

Not long afterward, her body was cremated and returned to the universe as ashes. Even as a child, I knew something much bigger than death had happened. The version of my family that I knew was gone.

Life continued, but it was never the same.

My biological mother eventually decided life was too difficult and left her three daughters behind to pursue a new life in another country. Our relatives slowly scattered in different directions. My sisters and I stayed with our father, a man we barely spoke to.

Thankfully, one of our aunts stayed. She became the person who cared for us when we needed someone the most

Life changed almost overnight.

The years that followed became a journey I could never have imagined, one that stretched from the mid-1990s into the early 2000s. Looking back now, I realize how much my sisters and I had to survive before we were even old enough to understand what survival meant.

Over the years, I have accepted that terrible things happen.

Life isn't fair.

Sometimes the people we love leave far too soon.

Sometimes families fall apart.

Sometimes children have to grow up much earlier than they should.

All we can really do is keep moving forward. And somehow, we did.

Today, our lives are far better than they once were, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Still, every now and then, I wonder.

What if my grandmother had lived longer?

Would I have had a complete family for more than six or seven years?

Would life have been a little less painful?

Would Mother's Day and Father's Day have meant something different to me?

Would I have become a different person?

Would I have learned to love more easily instead of building such strong walls around my heart?

Would I have had the chance to take care of the woman who spent her life taking care of everyone else?

I'll never know. Some questions simply don't have answers.

But there is one thing I know with absolute certainty.

I once had a complete family.

It wasn't perfect.

It wasn't peaceful.

It certainly wasn't healthy.

But for six or seven years of my childhood, I knew what it felt like to belong.

I knew what unconditional love felt like.

I knew what home felt like.

And perhaps that's why I miss my grandmother so much.

Because when she left this world, she didn't just leave behind her grandchildren.

She took the feeling of home with her.

I once had a complete family.

For a little while, I was lucky enough to experience it.

And no matter what happened afterward, no one can ever take that memory away from me.