Family Undefined

"A family is but an earlier heaven."

George Bernard Shaw

If it's actually possible to have something become broader and more precisely defined at the same time, then this whole construct of 'family' is that for me.  These days, in my seventh decade of life, who I am within the circle I call family is far more distinct, drilled down, focused.  And who I understand as being within that circle with me, where I draw those circles, is wider and wilder than I would have thought in younger years.

It's about blood lines yes.
But not only that.

It's about belonging together in ways you don't have to explain,
which is good because you kind of can't.

It's about a kind of hell or high water ferocity
that refuses to abandon one another even and especially in the midst of chaos.

It's about persistent, provable love.

It's about loving enough to feel all the painful realities.

About tasting salt when the other cries.

It's about being known deeply without judgement,
 and knowing deeply without judging.

And these things, this family deal, I have found in the circle of both the expected and completely unexpected of people.

Within a marriage that has weathered more than forty years.
Within a circle of progeny that expands in delightful exponentiality.

Within a faith community that becomes more cherished at every turn.
Within the company of kindred, individual souls
who've become part of an unspoken covenant
by the long-friendship default of reciprocated faithfulness.
Within a gathering of beloveds half a world away,
whose lives could not be more different,
but to whose love my heart could not be more fused.

In every arena of family there has been excruciating pain.
But unlike the disintegrated counterfeits,
true family grabs hold of the pain to reshape it
and force it to make us defiantly more inclined towards one another.
Defiantly together in the face of what tries to tear us apart.
That's family.

And I am rich in family!
God's compensation, perhaps, for how things started out.

These days it seems I move in and around these family circles fluidly,
welcomed and welcoming,
belonging and longing for,
more and more myself,
clearly defined and widening the parameters
all at the same time.

Preparation, I think, for what's to come.