So, I know I've written about family and friendship quite a little bit. I often have written about how completely screwed up the family I grew up with was, and about how it has sometimes left me wanting for relationships in my life that just can't ever be. I'm never going to have a father, and I'm never going to have a mother who understands what a mother is supposed to be. I've been lucky. I've had people in my life who give me some of the things my parents just couldn't, and still can't. This has been another one of those weeks that remind me family isn't always what nature provides us with, sometimes it's what those around us nurture us to build.
On Wednesday, I found myself prepared to spend half the day at my car dealership while my car was being serviced. I had brought my Kindle, magazines to catch up on, my laptop and plenty of snacks. A longtime friend noticed my "check-in" at the dealership and took pity on me. Four hours at a dealership translated to a need for a rescue. She didn't promise any excitement--she was just visiting her parents and her "sissy." I hadn't gotten to hang out with her for a while and decided that I'd take a chance anyway.
As I sat at the kitchen table with her, her mom and her "sister," it took around an hour or so for it to finally click with me that my friend's "sissy" wasn't her sister at all, but her best friend. Her best friend was staying at my friend's parents' house, and this hadn't been the first time they had welcomed her into the family so fully. It warmed my heart, and made me think of what it would have been like to have a safe place where I would have been so welcomed when I needed it myself.
I think for some, family comes easily. Family is an extension of who they already are, and as a result, it never occurs to them to make it difficult. That's not to say that these folks and families don't have their ups and downs, but in the end, the lack of judgment and the warm embrace of acceptance and love overshadow disagreements, alternative lifestyles and hard life lessons learned.
Probably with the exception of my grandmother, nobody in my family is like that. At times, I would say she is accepting to a fault, but as I think about the rough road my friend's "sister" has traveled and the acceptance she has found in my friend's household, I start to wonder if this is what family is really supposed to be--taking the bad with the good, and loving and caring for someone in spite of all the bad decisions and tight situations in which they find themselves. Maybe that's what's supposed to be normal, and the lack of that in my family is what makes me believe that a child who has made more mistakes than good decisions should be left to their own wilderness.
I know several gay men and women, whose families love them very much, but openly pretend not to notice or acknowledge this aspect of their sons' and daughters' lives. It's as if their demonstrative love can make up for the fact that they aren't openly accepting their very special children for everything that they are. On the surface, it looks fine, but when I think about these men and women, it makes me sad that they know this is a part of their lives they can never fully share with their families in the way that I am able to openly share my own love for my spouse with mine. What's worse, the political rhetoric of many in our nation actually reinforces that it's okay to treat family and each other in this way.
Sometimes, lack of acceptance doesn't even have to be related to a lifestyle out of "the norm." Many parents wouldn't choose the careers, lifestyles or decisions their children have. They often don't relate to what makes those choices right for their kids. As the years pass, that lack of relation and understanding comes across as misunderstanding and lack of acceptance. I think many parents don't even realize the distance that they are putting between themselves and their grown children when they openly question why anyone would want to walk the path their on. When I have seen this happen, it immediately occurs to me the harm that is done to the relationship.
As the capstone of this week, my husband and I attended a family wedding. It happens to be that both people have children from previous marriages. As a symbol of their coming together, they each poured sand into a larger container. They hadn't practiced this before the ceremony, and so not all of the sand fit. When they realized this was happening, each adjusted the share they poured into the larger vase. Sure, it was just an oversight. But when I think about it, that's what family is really like. We don't know how much of ourselves we have to give to make a family work. We don't know how much of ourselves will be accepted and loved in our family. Sometimes, it's very uneven. Sometimes, families fail, fall apart, and everyone is left adrift to start over on their own. Everyone in this new family has had a tough road--sometimes by fate, sometimes by choice. As they pour their uneven lots into their new family, they are doing so with hope. That's all you can really do.
When I think of my friend's family, and how openhearted they have been in taking someone into their family the way they have, it reminds me of what my husband always says when I pack up my things to visit the town in which I grew up: "That's not your home anymore. This is home." He usually has to remind me of this when I start grumbling about all of the things that grate on me about each trip. When he says "this is home," he's really saying "this is your family." This is the family I have made--the family that we have made. It has been two people and three dogs. We've been two or three hours from the families in which we grew up. We've done things our families don't understand and wouldn't do. We didn't plan it this way. We didn't know what building our family was going to take. Sometimes he gives more. Sometimes I give more. Ultimately, we've been making it up as we go along.
http://youtu.be/VqyW1XQrNhk
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