Establishing relationships with my half brother

2 weeks ago, I wrote about the passing of my biological father. I was in Shanghai when that happened and I had no intention of attending his funeral or wake, so I stayed on in Shanghai to complete the delivery of the training that was scheduled. I have since learnt that his second wife also opted not to attend, leaving her son, Tham Eng Kit, to take care of things. Luckily he had the help of the uncles (2nd, 3rd and 5th) and Aunt (8th) and Uncle in law.

I got back from Shanghai on 14th July and in the evening, called up Eng Kit for a meeting the next day. I had avoided establishing any relationship with him all these years because I did not want to open any opportunity for his father to even find an excuse to come back into our life. So Eng Kit survived 35 years knowing he had an elder brother but not knowing how to contact him (i.e. me). Letting his father any opportunity to come back into our lives would have done a grave injustice to my mum.

I have shared with a friend before that I consider relationships in life to be multi layered - very much like the layers of a large onion. At the core is family - good or bad, like them or hate them, they are still family. I chose to put my half brother at an arm's length all the 35 years of his life. But with the passing of his father, there was no reason to do so. So today, 15th July, I whole heartily welcome Eng Kit into my family core. My mum, my cousin Madeline and her husband were also there to welcome him, along with my wife and son. Out of the blue, Alex had someone to call small uncle (Sai Sook). Eng Kit's background is just as complicated. His mum remarried and he also has 2 brothers and sisters with different surnames. Now that is what I call complicated!!

If you are interested, the other layers of the relationship onion moves from Family to a multi layered friends circle, starting with God Daughters that are almost family, to core friends, casual friends and new friends. Outside of these are the colleagues, acquaintances, strangers and a dried shrivelled layer called enemies. As with an onion, the enemy layer is very thin and few.

Having a younger brother around is a new experience. It sounded funny whenever he called me Tai Kor - sounds like I am some underworld boss or something. Most of my cousins call me Yew Kor (Kum Yew being my home name). The get together was surprising very relaxed with no noticeable tensions. I guess since both of us were aware of the existence of the other and the circumstances and situation, we had accepted that it was neither's fault that things were the way they were.

Eng Kit, welcome to my family.