The apartment feels empty.
The family are on a plane, my mum, dad and niece. It is times like these that we realise that the meaning of the word family is the foundations of our heart.
I have been living in Sweden for a number of years now but there are some times that need a magical input. Wherever we live in life, there are times that require an injection of reality, a burst of energy that makes us realise that no matter who we are or what we are in life, life is all about where we cam from. The last few days have been amazing.
I find myself now in the “middle age”. My parents are entering the twilight of their lives, yet underneath this there is a younger generation that is coming up. I am no longer the twenty year old boy that can spin on his back or dance like I used to but I am still the boy that the parents love and that the family still look up to as an influence.
The past few years I have seen some friends who have lost parents, brothers and sisters and I never really understood that these moments were all about being together. My parents have been through a lot in life, possibly more that most parents will ever will, yet the fact that they are still here makes times like this really amazing.
Living in Swede has never been easy. Far from it. There are days when I am so alone I feel like I am in a completely different universe. But that distance can be changed from the love of family.
The little street that I take for granted here is a new pathway for those that have never walked these streets but have asked with me all my life. I take things for granted in life, faces, places, and those trivial things that we all need to make us who we are.
My parents will always be who they are, singing drunken songs with dad whilst my mum tried to pronounce my girlfriends name as we sat in a half a million pound apartment will always be a memory that I will take to my grave. Yet my thoughts and focus will always be on my eighteen-year-old niece. She is the one that was impressionable on this trip. Yes Bobbie has been to Africa and Portugal but here was a time where she could become an adult, to grow, to become a woman that transcends child to adult.
I tried my hardest to say “I love you” and for her to have freedom whilst I drunk beers with my parents, we have already bonded, yet the bond with the next generation and myself was yet to be forged. But I feel now that this has happened. .
So much in this city that I take for grand, and did London that there can be a difference in being. Every visit can make me who I am and also my family it can make us stronger. I have a family that I will love for life and they will love me eternally also. There is an incredible bond between us that no matter who we are or what we do, we are completely united for life.
Tomorrow, no doubt, I will be stuck in some boring meeting that will occupy the minds of all those who are there. But not me.
My mind will be on how my niece found Stockholm, how my dad can sing a song in a restaurant, yet have no shame. How my mum can cook the most amazing food ever.
Life is about moments, it is about family. It is about love.
I have the best family ever.
