OK, I'll hold my hands up and admit I wasn't sure which direction to take my gratitude challenge posts when I first started. But it kind of grew organically to end with an article on my wife.
When you consider my previous posts, and account for this, the final one of the challenge, Family is what I would say links them together.
Your spouse is the foundation to which you build your family onto.
With all successful marriages, compromise and understanding are a necessity – to continue the analogy, they are the bricks and mortar of your home.
Made refugees in 1974, my parents lost their home and all their possessions.
1974 was also the year they were married. Just shy of four weeks later, they had to flee their home from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Some honeymoon! To this day they still haven't had a honeymoon.
My parents are Greek Cypriots. They were introduced – arranged in some way – and three weeks later they were celebrating their wedding day. I publish this post today because it is also their anniversary. 46 years strong.
Being immigrants isn't easy for anyone. It certainly wasn't for them. They have faced racist abuse with death threats and messages to go home (they kept this from us, as any parents would, for some time). But one particular memory I have that only scratches the surface of their negative experience is when I was a child. My parents, with four boys, were looking to upgrade their house to give us a little more space. We went for a viewing and liked the property. But my dad has a thick accent and spoke to my mum in Greek during the viewing. That didn't go down well with the home owner. When my parents wanted to put in an offer, the estate agent had to break the news to them that the home owner in no uncertain terms wanted to sell to a 'foreigner'.
I have suffered abuse and taunts as a child growing up – bullied in school. Ridiculed because of my name. Come to think of it, all my brothers were bullied at some point for the same reasons. I was born and raised in the UK. I consider myself British, but I staunchly defend my heritage because it helps to define who I am. If I don't, it sullies the efforts of my parents and their hardship.
Racism: Disgraceful. Disgusting. Deplorable.
My parents work hard – never once did they stand in a dole line for a handout. Becoming working citizens of the UK, they paid their taxes and never missed a payment on their mortgage.
My dad was a barber – retired now. Mum was a hairdresser – gave up the job to be a doting housewife and look after us boys. They lived to ensure we had a stronger footing in life than they did.
I played footy as a kid – love the game. I played for local football teams and it was my mum who took me to all the matches. My mum was basically a taxi service for the four of us. To wherever. Whenever. My mum would always step up. Mum's really are the driving force of a home. It's like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the man might be the head, but the woman is the neck, controlling the direction of where the head goes.
Incidentally, if you have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, then I can categorically tell you the stereotypes are real! I have a brother and so many cousins called 'Nick' – it's tradition to name your children after your parents. And as my dad is one of nine children, there's plenty of opportunities for this to unfold. I was named after my granddad on my mother's side.
Like I touched on earlier, my dad has a terrific old-school work ethic. Never took a day off sick either. Took the plunge eventually later on in his career to run his own barber shop. This was a huge deal for him – the risks were great – with a family to provide for. It worked out.
You could say this work ethic was also a hindrance, as it tends to give you a conservative outlook on life – not wanting to take financial risks early on. He had opportunities to purchase a second house in the late 1980s on more than one occasion. He chose not to remortgage, as he was the sole provider and if anything happened to him then we would be landed with the subsequent debt. We all know what happened to property prices – they went boom! He says he regrets not buying the house, but that's all in hindsight and wouldn't change the way things are now.
However, that's not the point here. This is about my dad ensuring we had a roof over our heads. Clothes on our backs. Food on the table. For reasons I imagine have to do with them both living in poverty as children, my parents can be forgiven for not wanting to chance on the prospect of positioning their own children in a similar situation.
My parents are traditional – if I was analytical here, I'd say they still live in 1974. It's as though time for them stopped that fateful day. They had to start from the very beginning in another country. They had visited the UK prior to the invasion so it seemed like the right place for them to find new roots.
I learn from my parents – how to do things. But, probably more importantly, how not to do them. There's always a lesson to learn from your elders. They make decisions that they believe best serve their children.
I'm proud of my parents. And, like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I too live next door to them!
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My experience of siblings has always meant it was about unity and togetherness. But now, as we age, I'm thinking it stands for tolerance.
I'm one of four brothers. And we do get on well. That's me on the left as you see it (I was kind of inspired by Ken Melendez and his post featuring a photograph of him with his brothers)
There'd be times where we'd fight and bicker. But mostly there were times where we'd play and laugh together.
Where we now have technology at our fingertips to keep us occupied, we instead relied on utilising physical objects and imagine a world where they came to life.
As there were four of us, we'd split into two teams – my older brother and me against my two younger brothers – they are twins after all so that made sense. We'd play football in the back garden and wreck the grass (my dad spent many hours tending to his grass). We knew we were gonna get it, but at the time, we didn't care. We had fun for a couple of hours and that was enough to make any telling off worthwhile.
Of course, scuffed up grass wasn't just it – my dad also liked his greenhouse. But on the odd occasion – more times than not, we'd break the glass with a stray kick of the ball. When it happened, we knew playtime was over so we hid in our rooms in anticipation for when my dad would come home.
But this isn't about my dad – we were a handful. Not quite the NickelNDime handful, but we had our moments!
We'd take a bucket of toy soldiers and share them out. Build barricades with odd items such as shoes, toys and any other smallish contraptions we could find. The rules were simple – you can hide your soldiers behind the items, but part of it must be visible to the opponents eye. From there we'd take it in turns to throw an eraser at each other's army. I loved this game.
Then there were the times where we'd get on each other's nerves – many things were thrown in anger. Hard things that would have made serious damage had any of us been able to throw straight. A 'double A' battery launched from 5 yards springs to immediate mind, which missed my head by an inch. But these times were few and far between.
Of course, there were also the board games. Boy were we competitive. Ever played Risk? Chances are you might be familiar with this story then. The game was decided on the roll of dice. You amass hordes on your land and begin the process of completing your mission by invading the neighbouring countries and their armies. All you have to do is roll higher than the opponent. Well, the blood boiled over so many times it almost ended up with fists flying, as well as the board being flung across the room. Game over. We all refuse to play Risk with each other now, such was the emotion involved and the negativity that came with it.
I guess the point is, I have fond memories of my brothers growing up for which I am thankful for. But, as we went our separate ways and met our better halves, so too did the sense of togetherness. I'm not for one second expecting we stand on each others feet, but we don't really talk half as much as I would like. Perhaps I need to take responsibility for that – I talk to Nick, my older brother more than I do the twins. The twins talk to each other more than they do us.
The twins do have names. But we always call out to them as twins. Funnily enough, if we were all out together and I called for Mario, I'd get no response. If I called out to Andreas, he too wouldn't respond to his name. But, if I call out 'Twins', they both turn in acknowledgement!
I guess it's like when we were younger and we'd split into two teams. We still are two teams I guess.
As we grew older, so too our ideologies. And I guess that's where we'd slowly see the foundations beneath us begin to shift, and in turn create new boundaries. These boundaries I like to think of are comparable to that board game Risk. Only there are no dice to determine outcomes, only our tolerance levels to help keep us in check and in our own space.
I love my brothers despite inevitable changes that happen over time. And it's not all bad I suppose, otherwise we wouldn't be living 10 minutes from each other.
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For those of you with a subscription, check out more photographs of me with my brothers. You'll even get to see me as a 6 year old in my Superman costume!
YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER
