"No, I think two children is enough," I replied. "If we have another child it´s another education to fund and another airfare to find every time we want to visit my family in the UK."
"No, you should have another. Two is very few. You need to have a boy," the aunt urged me.
"You only have two children," I pointed out.
"No, I had three children," the aunt informed me, to my surprise.
"What happened to your other child?" I asked in disquiet.
"I had a son first. He had a heart murmur. When he was six months old he became unwell and we went to the hospital in Quito. They said he needed an operation, but the nearest place that could do the operation was Brazil. People were raising funds to help us, but he died before we could get the operation he needed. He was ten months old."
"That´s so sad," I replied.
"Well, then I had my other two children, a girl and a boy. You need to have plenty of children or else when accidents or illnesses strike you´re left without a family."
"I never thought of something happening to my children. I always imagine they will outlive me," I responded.
"Look what happened just this weekend to that group of seven young people who died in an accident while they were celebrating Ecuador winning the world cup match. Two of those who died were twin girls. Their mother just has one boy left. She is too old to have any more children. It´s good to have lots of children while you can. You never know what will happen in the future," the aunt advised.
Today, as we celebrated the birthdays of two uncles round the bar-be-que, and listened to the children playing happily, I appreciated the wonderful gift of family.
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