She hugged him, leaned on his shoulder and called him “darling.”
In a rare moment outside of politics, peace talks and constant pressure as Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi spent time with her younger son Kim Aris, 39, on Sunday in London while en route to the United States.
She also met with her grandchildren, according to a Facebook post by someone who was present for the reunions.
Suu Kyi’s strained relationship with her family has long taken a back seat to her fight for democracy, forcing her to make painful decisions between her private and public lives.
It started in 1988 when she returned to Myanmar to care for her sick mother. Before that she lived in Oxford with the academic Michael Aris and their two sons, Alexander and Kim.
Her return coincided with the pro-democracy uprising. Suu Kyi emerged as its leader. After it was crushed, she was put under house arrest by the military junta, where she stayed for a combined 15 years.
“Then of course I knew that my relationship with the family was going to change considerably because we would not be able to be in touch with each other,” she told the BBC in 2012, two years after her enforced imprisonment at her villa in Yangon had been lifted.
The separation meant years apart with very limited visits. Her husband died in 1999 of cancer but Suu Kyi was unable to travel to England as she feared not being allowed back into the country.
How often she has seen her older son Alexander is not widely known, but Kim traveled to Myanmar in 2010 after her house arrest was lifted, and she saw him again in 2012 on a trip to England during her first big trip abroad.
Back then, Myanmar had started to change under a quasi-civilian government, and Suu Kyi won a seat in parliament. Today, the 71-year-old is leading Myanmar’s government as state counselor and foreign minister, traveling to the United States to meet President Barack Obama on September 15.
Her endurance paid off but it clearly had a price. The Burmese are grateful for her decision but recognize the personal cost. This is one of the main reasons ‘The Lady’ is so revered in Myanmar.
“May the happiest days come ASAP as u sacrificed a lot,” was one of many comments on Facebook reacting to the photo and news of the visit, which came as something of a surprise.
“May your family be happy, mother!” another Facebook user wrote.
One person took a moment to express guilt over not sharing the same pain as her sons and late husband.
“It is like we are not sympathizing to mom’s family as we love u a lot.”
The trip also involved revisiting part of her political legacy.
While in London she was said to stay at the Dorchester Hotel, the same place where her father, General Aung San, lodged when he visited the city in 1947 as part of negotiations for independence.
