I still remember my mom’s nagging– “No more congregating and go to your rooms! It’s way past your bedtime!” We were always busy chatting and didn’t want to go to sleep yet. Such antics are inevitable when you have six girls in the house. As we grew older, though, it became rarer for all six of us to be able to have special nights where we were all gathered together.
So, when my youngest sister and her Naval officer husband were relocated to Hawaii, we decided to hold a family reunion. 25 first and second generations came and spent a week in several rented timeshares.
I remember we had so many family members gathered, it usually took more than 30 minutes to get everyone down in the lobby for breakfast. We made sure to take attendance for everyone, especially the children so no “home alone” situation would happen. There was one night, though, when we were coming home from dinner and thought one of my nieces got left at the restaurant. Everyone panicked! It turned out that she just got into a different car on her way back, since we’d had to rent 5 large cars to accommodate everyone.
2 years later, when we were planning for our second family reunion in Jeju island, my sister Youra rented a tour bus. Even the cheesy purple curtains with golden lace or the huge name tag on the front shield didn’t embarrass us. We were just a happy bunch like olden days when we were growing up. As long as we are together, we had fun. Cute happenings are almost inevitable when you have this big of a group, and we were 28 by this time.
We were busy chatting with whoever was sitting next to us on the bus after a satisfying lunch when my youngest sister Dangsun shouted out.
“Hey where’s James?”
Since the last incident in Hawaii, we made sure to be extra careful counting the kids every time we moved from one place to the next. However, no one checked the grown ups. Dangsun’s husband James must have been in the bathroom when the bus left. When we went back to the last restaurant, he was waiting for us with a look of disbelief. He unfortunately couldn’t call anyone because he didn’t have the roaming plan at the time, so he had just had to wait in hopes we would realize our mistake.
Today, our family has grown to 47 people, and it’s a lot more challenging to hold a reunion with everyone. We still plan family trips, but it’s more like “sister trips” or the first generation couples trip.
The husbands married to “Song sisters” get along well also after so many years of being a part of our family. Mother once said that her son in laws act as if they were from the same mothers.
Her comment was because they all have similar habits or preferences. For instance, none of them really drink alcohol, and they are all rather home buddies. Maybe that’s the reason why they get along so well.
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