FAMILY

My thoughts have turned from my nuclear family to a wider, longer view of relatives and generations.

My parents provided my sister, brother and me with a secure comfortable childhood, in which there was no food insecurity, fear of abandonment or threat of physical violence. We grew up in the house we were born in, we lived in a established neighborhood where all necessary services were provided. Our parents worked together to maintain a unit which could endure the stresses of changing circumstances. We were blessed with good health, a variety of neighbors, caring teachers and adequate finances. 

We three children each met expectations: we made friends, studied for school, graduated from college, married and produced another generation to follow. If we were a disappointment to our parents, they never let us know it.

Looking from this perspective, everything was simple, straightforward and predictable. But there is another way of looking at family history. Both Mother and Daddy were from broken homes: Mother lost her Papa when she was 10 and moved from the country to the city. Daddy's father was an alcoholic whose wife and four children had to live in an orphanage.

My sister and her husband adopted a son before two more sons were born.
My father's sister and her husband (an alcoholic) adopted a daughter.
My oldest son, who did not marry, looked after an underprivileged child in his neighborhood.

Among my sister, brother and I, we have 7 natural children and 7 grandchildren. However through the adopted son and the informally adopted daughter there are three more grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The point I am trying to make is that family is more than direct descends or blood relatives. Family is the unit of people who claim one another. We are fortunate if our family extends beyond the nuclear family because each member who enters has unique contributions to make to the others.

In this family picture are:
The woman who lost her father at 10,
The woman who grew up in an orphanage and adopted a daughter, 
A child who was a friend of the family.

The building is known as the camp, our version of a vacation home. It is about 15 feet from the bayou which floods in hurricanes. In fact it is now on stilts because of the extreme flooding during recent hurricanes required that it be raised.

I think that the total message of this post is that there are no pretensions in our family. We accept what comes to us, we apply ourselves to finding solutions. The important thing is not to think of yourself as a victim; depend upon your personal assets and upon the strength of the family to pitch in when needed.

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