When
someone complains about being lonely, I offer them a few dozen of my relatives.
I’ve
never been alone.
I went
from a nuclear family into one of my
own. Then, for a while I was a single parent until I married HB and we
created a blended family with his
kids and mine. As our children grew, and married, and had children, our tribe
grew into a large, healthy, extended
family. Some of our married kids are
still childless, yet they are a family – couples
without children. Why wouldn’t they be?
We do not live the Ozzie and Harriet life anymore, but what we have now
is just as valid and just as comforting.
What defines
family?
I am not
talking about the cold definition one finds in a dictionary or in the IRS 1040
Instruction booklet, but something that encompasses all the different
constellations within our homes.
Isn’t it
people who live together, related or not, in a committed, interdependent
relationship?
I used to
envy the only child, the sequestered num, Tom Hanks in that movie about the
island and the basketball, until I realized how truly blessed I am.
I am
covered in family.
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