Family

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving inspired a certain streak of recreating my family too.
Yep, if you count the little sparrow that fell from its nest when it was still blind, spending its short life of 5 days in the little newspaper-lined shoe-box in our house, the injured bright-blue kingfisher that flew into through the window grilles, the many fish and terrapins and water-snails we kept up to now, we do have pets too, parallel to what the Berry family had, a bear and later, dogs. But no furballs in our house. Would like to have a warm-blooded hairy mammal if possible one day.
There were 3 kids in the house, compared to the crowded lot of 5 in Berry. And we moved house twice, compared to their big three moves, once even from America to Germany.
Father is never a dreamer like Win Berry; he is a realistic practical man, but with a whole belly of lame jokes. He thrives among problems, being loaded with lots of common sense and survival skills. Win Berry crytallizes dreams, a man who lives in the future.
Mother is loving and tolerant, but sharp and domineering. But both mothers can sacrifice their own needs for the family. I really admire my mum for being able to stay with us throughout our child- and teenhood, neglecting her own freedom and pleasure. 20 years of youth, man, so precious and all given up for us.
The three of us, well, don't always get along. There are times when we prefer one of us to the other. Being the eldest, I don't feel up to the job, really. I need advice, from a nice big sis or bro, having equipped with what the family says only an EQ of 10% and the mindset of a 14 year-old. Can remember how we wormed and climbed our way through the crannies of the double-decker bed back in the old house. And pinching and reporting on each other when we lost the fight to the other. How unsportly, hah. The younger one can clique better with me, maybe inheriting the same humour genes from our parents. We are both rash, but he is softer at heart than me. The older one is the quiet one, keeping to himself, like Frank, but humorous all the same, albeit in a different manner. What we all share, the common genes, is our bull temper. How we can scream and yell and feel the blood rush and heart thump with rage when we get ruffled. Yes, we are a noisy family, boisterous with fast words that come uncensored. But we are all learning to control this bad trait in us.
Many things I can't remember. A family story, that will be hard to construct. Have to work with whatever remnants there are left in memory, and the revised and altered versions of our parents. There are a few favourite stories that our parents like to tell, like how she overslept and missed the time to fetch the older one from school. Thank goodness, he made his way back safely, and both mother and son hugged each other at the stairway and cried. Then there's a gross one on how the older one mistook his excretion for chocolate, and that needs no further illustration. The younger one has his childhood marked by various photos, taken in the Zoo, on Sentosa, along the streets, the period when we bought our first family camera. He, too, took part in some infamous anecdotes, one being his wonderment at how a thin lil card could command dollar bills from behind the wall, haha. He is the imaginative and smart one, fitting easily into the way of life, marked also by his premature landing onto this world at birth.