You Can Pick Your Friends . . .

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie 

Moma Rock

       

    This week’s topic was chosen by Merryland Girl, who asked:  Who do you consider family that is not related by blood or marriage?  Here is my take:

            You may not know this, but I have a large family.  Now, my immediate family isn’t too big, just five of us:  my husband, three kids, and me.  And my parental family was the same:  my parents, an older (half) brother, an older sister, and me.  But take another step up the family tree and the size suddenly balloons, as my Mom is one of eleven kids, meaning ten aunts and ten uncles (five of each by blood and five more of each by marriage) and a whopping twenty-six first cousins, just on that one side of the family.  You’d think I wouldn’t really need to add any non-blood/non-marriage family members.  But you’d be wrong.

            I’ve written before about the kids with whom I grew up, many of whom I consider family (or, as I like to say, the brothers I never asked for).  I’m lucky enough to keep in touch with almost all of them.  Of those, a handful I do, truly, consider to be family.  Our roots go back to the very beginning – we have never not known each other.  I think of some of their parents as my aunts and uncles.  I greet them with hugs and kisses, just as I would with my blood relatives.  And I love them with as much depth as if we shared ancestors. 

            Cindy, the daughter in the family who lived next door when I was growing up, will forever be my “sister from another mister” (and I loved her dad, too, very much – I always said that if my Dad hadn’t been around to walk me down the aisle, her dad would have been my back up.  Miss you, Bob.).  Sometimes it confuses my Facebook friends because my blood sister’s name is also Cindy, but she’s not on Facebook.  People are like, “Wait a minute, she doesn’t look like your sister … ”  Next-door Cindy and I send birthday cards and talk as much as we can, often for hours.  I talk to her about things I won’t discuss with my blood sister, probably in the way that some people talk to one sibling about certain things but don’t discuss those with another.  She is and will always be family to me.  Cindy’s older brother, Rick, passed away a few years ago (much, much too young).  Cindy and her two younger brothers (also like family to me) invited me over to help put photos together for the wake, and they welcomed me to join them during the family-only viewing hours at the funeral home.  I felt honored – they, too, see me as family.  At Rick’s wake, I cried as if I’d lost my big brother, because I had.  When Cindy told childhood stories during the eulogy, I laughed because I’d witnessed them all.  I felt her feelings with her.  Our family had taken a big hit.  We still miss him.

            My luck continued as I expanded my world outside of my block.  My friend Michelle and I met in high school, more than three decades ago.  We are each other’s “sisters in Bon Jovi,” but we are more than that.  My kids call her “Auntie Michelle” and her daughter calls me “Auntie Very Neesie.”  So blurred is the familial line that my middle daughter and my youngest daughter got into an argument about whether Michelle is actually a blood relation, because my middle daughter truly believed she was.  I call Michelle’s father “Daddy” and her younger brother remains “Baby Brother” even though he is well into his forties.  Not long ago, during a conversation about who knows what, I said to Michelle, “I know I’m not really family – ,” and she cut me off and in an even tone, said, “Yes, you are.”  I’m still smiling.  And she’s still family.

            I love the boys I grew up with and Cindy and Michelle, but when I think of non-blood family, I can’t help but think about my Uncle Tony.  His story is wonderful, and I think it speaks volumes about what family really, truly means. 

            Although my Mom had ten siblings, my father had only one, my Aunt Sophie.  I never knew my Aunt Sophie, as she died several years before I was born.  She became ill when she was young, in her teens, I believe.  The story I’ve been told is that she had thalysemmia, or what we call the “Mediterranean blood disease.”  It involves hemoglobin and hits those of Mediterranean descent, and it takes life young.  I don’t know much about my aunt’s illness or her death, other than my grandparents knew she wouldn’t live long.  And she didn’t.  She died just shy of thirty.

            Before she died, Aunt Sophie met a man.  His name was Tony.  I don’t know how they met, but they did, and they fell in love.  Eventually, Tony approached my Grandpa to ask for permission to marry my aunt.  My Grandpa told him what my aunt didn’t know – that she wouldn’t live too long, that their marriage would last only a few years at best, and she’d likely be quite ill during that time.  And so Tony went away to think about what to do.  Two or three days later, he went back to my Grandpa and said he didn’t care.  He said he loved my aunt and he wanted to marry her, even if he’d only have her a few years, even if he’d have to take care of her and ultimately lose her. 

            They married.  Here, technically Tony became my Uncle Tony.  Except he really didn’t, because I wasn’t yet born and before I was, my Aunt Sophie passed away.  At that point, Tony wasn’t any relation to my family or me.  Nothing more than my deceased aunt’s former husband.

            Except Tony didn’t go away.  He didn’t want to, and the family didn’t want him to.  My aunt could not have kids, so before she died, she and my Uncle Tony adopted a son, my cousin, whom we called Little Anthony.  After my aunt passed, Uncle Tony and Little Anthony stayed close to our family; after all, my grandparents were Little Anthony’s, too, and my parents were his aunt and uncle.  A few years later, Uncle Tony met a woman (coincidentally, she was the ex-wife of a police co-worker of my Dad).  Her name was Jean.  Tony and Jean married and Tony adopted Jean’s daughter, Tia, and Jean adopted Little Anthony.  And they were all family to me even though there was no blood relation or even marriage relation between us at all.  On my Dad’s side of the family, I had an Uncle Tony and Aunt Jean and two cousins, Tia and Little Anthony.

            Uncle Tony and Aunt Jean (we call her Jeannie) were two of my favorite “relatives.”  I loved going by their home, even though it was a looong car ride away, in the far western suburbs.  They were always warm and welcoming.  Uncle Tony always gave us nickels to play his slot machine, and Auntie Jeannie gave lots of hugs and kisses, and in her throaty voice she called us “sweetie” and “baby” and “beautiful.”  She’d say, “What’s cookin’, good lookin,” with a big, big smile.  They both lit up a room in their own way.  Have you ever watched Real Housewives of New Jersey?  Joe Guidice reminds me of my Uncle Tony – quiet, soft-spoken, built like a fireplug – except my uncle wasn’t an idiot.  In my mind, I always see my barrel-chested uncle wearing a sleeveless T-shirt; I cannot picture him in anything else.  Aunt Jeannie was a hairdresser in the style of Vegas:  big hair, lots of make-up, tons of genuine affection.  I loved my Uncle Tony even more when I was old enough to hear the story about his decision to marry my aunt, despite her short lifespan.  And I loved my Aunt Jeannie for never attempting to pull him away from us but instead jumping into our family with her arms open wide, with kisses for everyone.  Such warm, wonderful people. 

            My Uncle Tony passed away a few years ago, and I went to his wake with my parental immediate family.  I hated saying goodbye to the only uncle I had on that side, to someone so genuine, so loving, so kind.  He’s gone, but he will always be my uncle.  And Aunt Jeannie (who is still alive) will keep her aunt status forever.  (Side story:  At the wake, my Dad loudly asked Aunt Jeannie what they did with the burial plot next to my Aunt Sophie, the plot that was bought for Uncle Tony.  Jeannie said they sold it.  I don’t think my Dad was surprised – it made sense for Uncle Tony to be buried next to Aunt Jeannie, and there wasn’t a space for her at that cemetery – but I think my Dad was disappointed.  I’m pretty sure he wanted Uncle Tony to be near his sister and his parents, near family.) 

            Family is about blood, for sure.  But it’s about so much more.  It’s about commitment.  My aunt and uncle made that commitment, and they saw it through, for decades.  Death didn’t change that – not the death of my blood aunt or her husband.  Family is also about love.  If you love someone like family, and they love you back, then they become family.  It has nothing to with DNA or ancestry and everything to do with shared feelings, beliefs, and memories. 

            In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee wrote, “You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family[.]”  I disagree.  You can choose your family.  Being a blood relative is easy.  It takes no work – it’s the product of luck and genetics.  But being chosen as family takes effort.  It must be earned.  For those reasons, it almost seems sweeter, more valuable, something to cherish forever.  I know I will.