I had an experience at Christmas that confirmed my sense that your real family are the people who love you and whom you love, whether they are related to you or not.
My wife and I have been married for 26 years. We have five children who all lived together during most of their childhood and adolescence. None of these now-grown children are the product of our own marriage. When we first met, I was a single-parent raising three kids by myself, and Joyce was a single parent raising two children. Six years separate the youngest from the oldest.
Our five children, their four spouses and one partner, plus the two grandchildren spent the Christmas holidays together at our house — a gathering that happens at Christmas every other year. For three couples and two children being together with the rest of the family meant flying to Maine from the West Coast.
We had a wonderfully warm, chaotic and loving Christmas together. These events confirmed for me that, in addition to being different nuclear families, we are also one loving family. If you are part of a step-family or are otherwise acquainted with step- families, you know that it is no small achievement to come together as one mutually-caring family.
At our family gathering, I was attentive to the powerful bonds that were celebrated by people who, in several cases, had not seen one another for many months, as well as the new bonds between the grandchildren, both two-and-a-half years old and several of the adults present.
The whole experience was an affirmation for me of the fact that often your real family is the people whom you love and who love you, regardless of whether or not you are biologically related. Affirming that fact can be especially helpful for people who are inclined to bemoan the fact that they are not close to their birth family and overlook the fact that they are surrounded by the loving family of supportive friends who have come together over the years.
Here, as in many occasions in life, we have a choice — regret the love that we don’t have or celebrate the love that surrounds us and needs only to be acknowledged and lived for us to be filled by its presence.
I had an experience at Christmas that confirmed my sense that your real family are the people who love you and whom you love, whether they are related to you or not.
My wife and I have been married for 26 years. We have five children who all lived together during most of their childhood and adolescence. None of these now-grown children are the product of our own marriage. When we first met, I was a single-parent raising three kids by myself, and Joyce was a single parent raising two children. Six years separate the youngest from the oldest.
Our five children, their four spouses and one partner, plus the two grandchildren spent the Christmas holidays together at our house — a gathering that happens at Christmas every other year. For three couples and two children being together with the rest of the family meant flying to Maine from the West Coast.
We had a wonderfully warm, chaotic and loving Christmas together. These events confirmed for me that, in addition to being different nuclear families, we are also one loving family. If you are part of a step-family or are otherwise acquainted with step- families, you know that it is no small achievement to come together as one mutually-caring family.
At our family gathering, I was attentive to the powerful bonds that were celebrated by people who, in several cases, had not seen one another for many months, as well as the new bonds between the grandchildren, both two-and-a-half years old and several of the adults present.
The whole experience was an affirmation for me of the fact that often your real family is the people whom you love and who love you, regardless of whether or not you are biologically related. Affirming that fact can be especially helpful for people who are inclined to bemoan the fact that they are not close to their birth family and overlook the fact that they are surrounded by the loving family of supportive friends who have come together over the years.
Here, as in many occasions in life, we have a choice — regret the love that we don’t have or celebrate the love that surrounds us and needs only to be acknowledged and lived for us to be filled by its presence.
Tags: feelings of love, loving family, loving friends, real family
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on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 9:29 PM and is filed under Family, Relationships.
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