What a year this has been. I have mixed feelings about 2025. It began with disappointment, but also with eye-opening, jaw-dropping clarity.
After 37 years, my mum and I finally visited my uncle, who lives only a four-hour drive away from us in Germany. I don’t remember much about my childhood visits, but I clearly remember our very first and last visit 37 years ago. We stayed for a week, and it feels like yesterday - not because of my uncle, but because my grandparents were there. Seeing them made me happy.
When you go through the kind of difficulties and challenges my mum and I have faced, denial becomes a survival mechanism. Over the years, of course I wondered why my uncle never visited us or even made a simple phone call to ask how we were. But when you’re busy surviving, your priorities shift. You start making excuses for other people’s cold shoulders and silence.
For decades, I tried to bring our family together. I have two uncles and six cousins. Every few years, I asked if anyone would be open to a family reunion. The outcome was always the same: indifference and distance. Eventually, I stopped trying and lived my life.
But time flies. Suddenly, decades had passed, and I felt a strong desire to finally meet my cousins and see my uncles one more time in this lifetime. We’re all getting older. It was time to act.
After countless messages back and forth - mostly filled with excuses - I made a bold decision and said: We’re taking the train tomorrow and we’ll see you in a few hours. In my culture, family comes first. Doors are always open. Hospitality is part of who we are.
If my relatives had lived in a city, we would have booked a hotel. But they live in small villages, and we knew we had to stay at my uncle’s house. So we decided to keep the visit short - four and a half days, a long weekend - hoping to meet as many relatives as possible.
Long story short: this was not a Hallmark movie. It was not the warm welcome I had hoped for.
My other uncle didn’t bother to show up or even have a short phone conversation with my mum. The uncle we stayed with treated us in a way no guest should ever be treated. His three sons didn’t show up - one was on holiday - and his daughter, my only female cousin, came not because she genuinely wanted to know us, but because our home country has always been a “dream travel destination” for her.
What we heard during those four and a half days was eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and - painful as it was - absolutely necessary. It was a wake-up call. I learned my lesson once and for all:
The people who are meant to be in your life stay. The ones who disappear must disappear-because they are no good for you, neither emotionally nor spiritually.
When we returned home, it took my mum and me months to recover from these brutal insights. But they helped us finally let go - without regret, without sadness. Only gratitude. Gratitude that God knows exactly why certain people should not be part of your life. He protects you.
This trip became the source of several new songs I’ve written - in English and in German. Now that months have passed, I’m grateful I no longer have to live with “What if?” questions. I’m glad we live in different countries. I’m glad these unkind, cold-hearted people don’t live close to us.
We may be blood-related, but they are strangers -stranger than people you pass on the street. We have absolutely nothing in common.
So why am I sharing this?
If you feel lonely and have the urge to reconnect with people who have ignored you for decades, know this: you are better off without them. As my grandmother used to say, “Only care about those who care about you. Only think about those who think about you.”
I don’t know why I didn’t see what was so obvious. I feel foolish now for holding onto such deep emotional longing for my relatives. Maybe if we didn’t feel as lonely as we sometimes do in Switzerland, we would have lived our lives without ever thinking about them.
Switzerland can be narrow-minded and emotionally cold, and loneliness is everywhere. You feel an emptiness and believe it will disappear once you’re surrounded by “your own people.” I was wrong. But I’m glad we took this short trip.
My soul feels free now. I can honestly say I tried everything in my power to fill that emptiness-and these people were not the solution.
Thanks for the inspiration, though.
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