Adjusting To Changes In The Family

My brother has left home for an army camp early this morning to join the armed forces as part of his National Service (NS). His absence is just another transformation to the family that, well, let me just put it as 'has been taking place a little bit more frequently than it ever did' when we were all much younger.

National Service (NS) in Singapore is a compulsory conscription to all male Singapore citizens and second-generation permanent residents once they reach the age of 18. My brother is 20 at the time he starts serving the nation, but just like the others, he has to serve a period of two years as a Full Time National Serviceman (NSFs) in the military.

My brother’s absence due to the conscription though not for the entire two years (as he will be back every now and then), is just another illustration that contributes to the changes within the family (particularly with regards to the family size) which I am going to talk about, and which to a certain extent have made me feel like I was the one responsible for the start!

My departure for Australia about 4 years ago seemed (to me) to have triggered such transformation within my family that has always looked like a flock, without a single one missing.

I know transformations within each family are inevitable and will occur at some points of time in everyone’s life. For example, a marriage can cause both increase and decrease in the number of family members in a household, and a death of a member of a family will cause a permanent change in the family and a fall in the number of members in that household. For those who have experienced any of the two or both might probably be thinking that the changes in my family, particularly the temporary shrinking of my family size is of no big deal.

But such transformation to my family which only began to intensify in the past 4 years came one after another within an interval of 6 months each, starting with my departure to Hobart in 2002. 6 months after my departure, my younger sister left home for Perth to do her degree, and another 6 months later my elder sister joined her (in Perth) for the same reason. And since then my family size has shrunken to 4 people, but increases like an extended family each time we all return home for our summer holiday.

And because of the nature of our departure, and the nature of our absence, I have always thought it easy for my family to put up with the entire thing without much concern. Also as the one to leave home (and the one who would always leave home for Australia after each summer holiday earlier than the other two would), I never knew what it felt like to be the one to see and live in the shrunken family size.

And now that I am home, I realized that I AM NOT enjoying every moment someone from my family leaves - not for work or school, but for a period of time, living somewhere else. My sisters left for Perth 2 weeks after my return and now my brother has left home for an entire fortnight for the army. It's an awful feeling altogether. Not only do I have to cope with the absence of some members of the family I grew familiar with over the past weeks since my return, but also to cope with the ways each remaining member of the family reacts and expresses his/her feelings with regards to the changes. And I believe after a while of settling down and accepting home as it is, another round of disturbance will occur when a member returns home after a long period of time of being away. My return in January, for example, has caused massive unhappiness to almost everyone at home because I was taking away some things my family has grown familiar to while I was away.

Such adjustments, I believe will not end anytime soon. There are further adjustments that we will all have to go through, and the soonest to come would be the return of my brother in two weeks time. Though we will all be very happy to have him at home, the happiness will probably only last for the next 2 days as he will have to leave for the camp again on Sunday night. Until we all get used to it, I do feel terribly sorry for my other family members like mum, dad, and Asyraf who have to keep adjusting to such situations since 4 years back each time someone from the family leaves or returns. Hence apologies on my behalf...