Sukob

In 2006, my mom’s three siblings got engaged and the news brought a whirlwind of excitement, anticipation and family drama. I thought that attending three weddings in one year would be thrilling, but my aunts and uncle thought otherwise. As the three set to resolve the issue of who was going to get married when, my family waited anxiously to see what they had settled on. As I discussed the matter with my sister, I asked her why they couldn’t all just get married the following year, as each couple had originally planned. “Well, duh,” she replied, “three weddings and one family? Don’t you think they’d all explode or something?” I digested her comment and realized it was probably impractical to clump them all in the same year. After all, planning a wedding and the stresses of in laws can drive not only the bride and the groom insane, but their families as well. While my sister’s logic seemed to make sense, I soon discovered that my aunts and uncle had another reason for their different wedding dates. “Sukob” was the term that explained it all. Apparently, there was a Filipino superstition that if one gets married the same year as another immediate family member, both parties will experience terrible luck, leading to great misfortunes, such as death. When one of my aunts first explained it to me, I could not get myself to believe her. This sounded like absolute rubbish. My aunt could tell that I was not convinced, so she showed me a movie called Sukob, which meant “wedding curse.” Though it was a bit frightening, and showed a series of unexplainable tragedies in the lives of two siblings who got married in the same year, I wasn’t buying it. Whatever the truth may be, I suppose I am just thankful that I have no reason to believe that any of my family members are cursed …