Family is all that matters

 

Why family is all that matters

All throughout our lifetime, as soon as one steps into pre-school, building relationships start. And that becomes part and parcel as we evolve into maturity and adulthood. But the clock does not stop there, though. Every new day that dawns, there we are, constantly dependent on those relationships we nurture all along.

But no relationship becomes most indispensable as the tightly knit relationships we have with our immediate families. That’s our very backbone, our very spinal support. Take them away and you will crumble before you knew you did.

From today’s 8 billion global population, I’d like to single out a Filipino-American whose growing-up years I was constantly glued for the past decade now and that is the Filipino-American chess super grandmaster WESLEY SO.

WESLEY was not even 10 years old when he actively competed in chess tournaments and when he turned 10, he grabbed first place in the Philippine National Chess Championships for the U-10’s group. The accolades and placings he garnered in both local and international tournaments are just too many to single out. But during his formative years, he always had his family’s support behind him. Until one day, his family had to migrate to Canada and he was literally left alone to fend for himself in the Philippines when he had not even reached legal age.

Can you imagine a child prodigy suddenly ensconced in his living quarters in Manila, fending off for himself while he actively pursues his chess gamesmanship ? There was just no way he could have survived life that way, forlorn and alone.

Before he turned 20, he received an academic scholarship from Webster U. But more than the academics, he was blessed to find a Hungarian and Vietnamese couple turned surrogate parents who guided him when he had no idea how to survive life in the United States. And for awhile, his chess career flourished under the Hungarian-Vietnamese couple even as he had to comply with the academic rigors of Webster U’s terms and conditions.

When things kinda soured with the Hungarian-Vietnamese couple, just in time, he met for the first time a Filipino couple in a Christian event, unaware that he was fated to be with that Christian Filipino couple as his adoptive parents. And for almost ten years now, WESLEY’s adoptive parents were unbelievably so focused on his chess career to such extent that his adoptive mother was literally his shadows wherever the chess tournaments will bring him, even to far-flung places like Tblisi and Armenia, strongholds of the now crumbled Soviet Federation.

What this tells us is that no one can deny the support we need from our family. And if your legitimate family structure crumbles into pieces, figure out a surrogate family, find adoptive parents whose hearts may even be much more comforting than the estranged parents. Forget the financials. It is the emotional and psychological support that matters most. That’s your umbilical cord in life. Cut it and you get cut off.