Classmates turned relatives

I have 2 classmates from school who became my relatives. They don't know each other, but they married into my large extended family.

The first to marry into the family was my classmate Lilian who married my uncle Sam and that makes her my aunt. My Uncle Sam is my grandmother's brother's son. Uncle Sam is an after-thought child. His parents had a son who died when he was quite young. Then after some long stretch, they decided to have another kid and voila - Uncle Samuel (or Sam-sam) appeared. Uncle Sam's parents had him in their later years. Uncle Sam is the youngest of all my father's cousins and he is even younger than me!!

When we were kids, I never referred to Sam as "Uncle Sam" - in fact none of my older cousins did address him as Uncle since they were older than him. Then of course, it was a case of follow the older cousins, so he was never Uncle Sam to me - just Sam or Sam-Sam.

Anyway, when Lily and Sam got married - I believe it created an uproar of sorts in the family. Lilian was the older woman with her own money and could be quite dominating as well (from what I am told) but then girls from my school do speak their mind.

I never met them when they were dating, never heard anything about this girl and since I wasn't invited to the wedding (I am one generation down) I never knew that my classmate had become my aunt until grandmother's sister (Ee-mah) returned from USA to visit the family and I met Lilian and Sam together was man and wife. Boy was I stunned and I certainly kept away from them.

My Kim-mah became the maid in the home - she cooked and cleaned at home when Sam and Lilian went to work and also looked after the grand-daughter. My poor grand-aunt looked really gaunt when I met her a couple of times at family get-togethers.

Have to admit that I am not hot about Lilian even in school because she seemed like the really bitchy char-bor type.

BTW - since I have never addressed Sam as UNCLE, Lilian does not warrant that same courtesy from me to address her as AUNTY!

The next classmate to marry into the family was Corinne. She married my nephew Eugene who is about 10 years older than me. I know that my mother is Eugene's father's aunt. How we are related along this line is a little vague but I know that Eugune addresses me as AUNTY and he is so polite and addresses my mother as GRANT-AUNT!!

This gets even more hilarious. For many years, Eugene dated a much younger girl because he had this theory that he had to marry young eggs for his kids. His mother didn't like the young girl he dated and showed her displeasure.

I was invited for Christmas lunch at The Tanglin Club by ST (Eugene's mother's brother) - and was informed that the usual Christmas lunch suspects would be around the table. Then ST casually mentioned that Eugene would be bringing along his new girlfriend and that they would be getting married. I paid no attention to the statement other than something along the lines of "That's great - your sister approves I assume". ST told me - come and see, my sister approves!

So I turned up for Christmas lunch at The Tanglin Club with a small gift for my prospective niece to be - hmm...

When Eugene arrived with Corrine, he introduced me as AUNTY C and Corinne dutifully noted the relationship. Then during lunch, I whispered to Eugene: your Corinne used to go to school with me and was my classmate. She wasn't Corinne then, but I can give you her name in school. He looked at me stunned. Then he said to Corinne - Aunty C here says that she knows you from school. Corinne looked at me for ages and stared and stared for a good minute but she could not make out what I looked like in school. It just didn't strike her that Aunty C here would be her classmate and she demanded that I say something about our lives in school.

After a couple of recollections about school (the stink bomb explosion and the horrible teacher in Primary 6), Corinne let out a squeal (typical of girls from that school!!) and said - YOU ARE MY CLASSMATE! I AM NOT GOING TO ADDRESS YOU AS AUNTY - CANNOT!!!

We both burst out laughing and started exchanging notes. In all honesty, I hadn't seen Corinne since we both left school at 16 so it had to be nearly 20 years!!

Eugene still insists on addressing me as AUNTY - I think Eugene does that to make himself seem younger; and Corrine doesn't bother. I'm OK with that too!