The Meaning of Family

I have lost some of my family over years. I would like to share one of my loss in this article -- the loss that made me realize the meaing of family. Here is my story.

This is a story about one of my maternal aunt. She was a few years yonger than my mother. She became a buddhist priest right after she finished her highschool. When she turned to her fifty, she got a uternine cancer. After fighting against it for a few years, she had sadly passed away.

When I was young, my parent sometimes took me to the temple where she stayed. I did not like it. It took a whole day since it was far from my home and my family did not own a car. Moreover, being in the temple is not something that a boy around in my age likes. I should have kept quite and took part in a buddhist ceremony. I often met my maternal cousains there, but I was not allowed to house around with them. Also, I was not allowed to address my aunt as an aunt.

However, she was the reason that made me keep thinking about buddhism. Whether or not I liked being in the temple, my family kept going. Each time I visited the temple, I learned something about buddhism. At first, I thought religions were stupid. I thought god did not exist. However, it did not matter what I believed. As I kept visiting the temple, I was indoctrinated. Also, as I was growing up, I got things that I had to achieve, even relying on luck. I found myself wishing my luck to Budda.

One day, that aunt who had influnced a lot and gave a lot memory to me got a cancer. When I visited her right after she got her first surgery, I never thought she were going to die of the cancer. I thought she would recover from it. She just turn to her fifty. However, she did not. A year later, she got medical examination. A doctor told us that she needed another surgery since the cancer got worse.

She refused to take futher medial treatment. She wanted to live with the cancer. Leaving hospital, she went back to Buddha. She stayed