Thoughts on Family

I never really started to appreciate the idea of having blood family until I lost my aunt Rita to cancer back in January 1999. When you’re little, you know little else but the innate security that comes from having people in your life who are there, regardless if you want them there all the time or not. Family is not limited to those who are blood, of course. Some of us realize this at an early age when we begin to make strong connections with individuals that mirror what we desire our families to be. This may come about if our given families are distant, or emotionally disconnected, but more often than not, it is the joy of life to make friends that become as close to us as kin. However, there is something to be said for the ache that comes when relations that have seen us from diapers onward are suddenly and inexplicably, gone.

In the past decade I have lost all of my grandparents on both my mother’s and father’s side. This past year both my great-grandma and grandma passed a week apart from each other, for which I still grieve at odd hours it seems. The most difficult loss for me yet is the fact that I’ve been estranged from my father for about five years now due to an abusive marriage he is holding on to. As a result I have two underage sisters I cannot visit or have a relationship with any longer; mainly because my step-mother is a deeply broken person, and I’m afraid unaware of how her brokeness has affected others.

Forgive me if this sounds like a pity party, because it is not. I think for most of us loss is something that we all must face, loss of relationships. It is one of the most difficult aspects of life, I think because we realize how very little control we have in matters that we feel we should. It is for this reason that I have become so keen lately on trying to hold onto whatever blood relations I have left. Although most of my external family have moved away from the great mitten to warmer climates, I thank God for Facebook. I can keep up with them more frequently and feel a bit more connected through current photos, posts, and inbox messages.

So when I found out last week that my dad’s brother Don and his son, Aaron were flying in from Cali, I jumped on the opportunity to set up a date with them. I have probably only seen my uncle and cousin a handful of times in my life and mainly when I was very little, but the pervasive connection to my own father, and the fact that I can’t rely on others to maintain these connections for me any longer(ie being dragged to family functions) then I thought “dammit I’m gonna do it myself.” So I called up my Uncle who I haven’t seen in eleven years and expressed how excited I was that he and Aaron were coming to visit and that my mom (my only nuclear family) and I would be thrilled to see them.

We planned on getting together this past saturday, which was perfect, because I had already planned on visiting with my mother, and she hadn’t seen Donny and Aaron since my dad’s mother’s funeral back in the mid 90’s. So the date was set. I worked a nine-hour shift that morning and flew back to my apartment to shower and change, and then drove out to Livonia to my mom’s. I had called my uncle earlier and left a voicemail, but I hadn’t heard back at that point. We weren’t sure when we were meeting, and I had no idea how else to get ahold of him. I texted him around five and he responded that he had gone out with one of his friends for food in dearborn. On that note, my mom and I decided to go out for dinner and wait to see what their plans were for after. I got a response that he and Aaron would love to meet up for drinks later at the Box Bar in Plymouth. I had sort of forgot that Don and Aaron live in Cali and are both extremely extroverted, fun-loving, adventurous guys and like to stay up really late. Maybe, I never knew that at all, but by the time ten o’clock rolled around and I hadn’t heard from them about leaving Dearborn, I was ready to go to bed.

I had been up since 5 a.m. and I thought we would have met up with them a lot earlier. Then I get a text at 10:30, and they are ready to party. It was as if all my sleepiness wore off, the moment I had waited for, and been a texting creep for, was finally here. My mom and I drove to Plymouth and got to the Box around 10:45. We waited about ten minutes and got drinks at the bar before finally, in walks Donny and Aaron. Maybe this sounds retarded, but I felt so elated. This was my family, not my dad’s brother who I could only see for about an hour because my step-mom secretly resented him for being gay (she’d find any excuse to push my Dad’s family away from him). This was my Uncle and my cousin.

The next couple hours were awesome. We sat outside in the warm summer night and drank beers and asked questions like ” What do you do?” “Who are you?” My uncle Donny has a great job as security for a private company and owns a gorgeous house in San Diego. He is in fantastic shape and gets out quite a bit, he and Aaron have a great relationship. Aaron, who is a year older than me, just bought a condo down the street from his ol’ dad and is getting ready to go on a tour’ de South America with his girlfriend next month.

Honestly, it felt amazing to be reconnecting with my family, and to find out that they were such good people. Aaron is extremely philanthropic and is using his computer skills to launch a website for a non-profit in some poor country down in South America, I can’t remember which. He has done a lot of traveling thus far and cares deeply about people and world situations. I have rarely met a man like him, let alone in my own family.

As things like this go, it went by way too fast. I left feeling, however, inspired and encouraged by my family. I know the next step is going to visit them. I have another aunt in Cali, as well, and family in florida I am long overdue on seeing. I treasure the fact that my mom and I are so close, and I look forward to reclaiming some of my lost relationships. The ones that are gone permanently are only the ones who have left this world, that is the only finality. There is still hope and opportunity with those who are living, and even with murky situations like my dad and sisters, all I can do is pray and ask for a door to open. Family is so important, it is true, they help us realize who we are, and give us strength inways that others cannot.