Our Father’s family

This topic might seem strange or confusing to some but I’m going to expound on it in a moment. First let me tell this story.

I happened to be in a discussion with a few friends one day and one of them told us a story about his family. He was complaining rather, of a younger female cousin of his who had offended him. He said he had sent her a very simple text with the message; ‘miss you, love you.’ which she misconstrued and then replied him that he should never ever in his life send that type of message to her again. He got angry and called her back immediately asking her what she meant by her reply and she apologized, saying that her boyfriend had seen the message and wasn’t very comfortable with its content. It was especially irritating to my friend because this is a common practice in their family; they show their love to one another all the time. To cut a long story short, they resolved their differences.

That is not the main focus of my rambling today though. He went on to tell us how closely knit his paternal family was as compared to his maternal side. He said all his cousins, first, second or third from his father’s side are very close. They spent a lot of time together while growing up, had lived together for many years and till date are still very comfortable in one another’s company. This story sounded both strange and exciting to me because in most cases, you hear of such closeness from the mother’s side of the family and not the father’s.

Right there and then, as we were discussing, I counted four or five other people who shared the same opinion as mine, they are closer to their mother’s side of the family than their father’s.

I for one, have cousins on my paternal side that I have not seen in years and when I say years, I mean fifteen years and more, not some measly two, three years. My father’s people are as far from me as the earth is from the heavens. It’s just irreconcilable differences; I don’t see the situation changing anytime soon, except we, the younger generation, decide to do something about it.

It made me wonder how this became the norm, how it became a way of life and an acceptable practice. This is a trend I have noticed in Nigeria particularly but I might be wrong. Is it peculiar to my sphere of influence alone or is it a common trend?

So, in a bid to know more, I have decided to throw this question out to my wonderful readers. Please, I’ll like your input, comment and let me know. Is it something you’ve noticed too or am I in a league of my own? Maybe I need to change my friends and (or) family….lol.