'Ohana

This week's Gallery is 'Family'

 'Ohana is a reference to blood relatives in Hawaiian culture.  Wiki says  "ʻohana means family (in an extended sense of the term, including blood-related, adoptive or intentional). The concept emphasises that families are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another."

The ' at the start is called an 'okina and it marks the glottal stop - I never knew what that was until today and yet we use them all the time!

HWMBO and Cog aren't blood relatives and have always had a relationship disadvantage in that I have always actively encouraged Cog's relationship with her father over and above that with HWMBO.

There have been periods where they are so distant I wonder if there is any level of relationship at all but across the years something has naturally formed.

HWMBO is a very patient teacher and has been able to get her to do things neither me or her father could.

He taught her to enjoy water and start swimming. He spent endless hours in a pool with her at Ayres Rock.  I don't know how he did it.

He's thrown her around pools, taken her down enormous water slides and flumes.

 He taught her how to walk into the harsh West Australian surf, how to dive through the surf and how to swim across a current.

 Sometimes they are like 2 peas in pod.

 And I find myself saying 'you are just like your father' and it feels odd.  He has never been referred to as Dad, or a father, he is just HWMBO.  Always there in the background, able to do the maths homework!

'ohana