Family

-->

“I pregnant” she said

I jumped up in bed

Those words bore a hole in my brain

What have we just done?

Do I stay or do I run?

Or do I give her half of my name?

 

Family? They are your closest friends? The ones you have spent more time with than anyone else?

But who are these people? Some are older and some maybe younger and other than having the last name what do you have in common?

These are the people you go on vacation with. These are the people you eat with. These are the people you sleep with. These are the people who teach you faith. These are the people who teach you values. These are the people who teach you ethics.

These are the people who provide you with food and shelter. These are the people who force you into education. These are the people who tell you what to wear and when to eat and when to sleep. These are the people who buy you gifts during holidays and birthdays and make you cakes so you can take picture with them.

These are the people who define your history. These are the people who you have family gatherings with and find new people who are associated to you though some may be strange but you have to like them because they are family.

A family may have an uncle who gases himself in his garage or a grandmother who is always happy or another grandmother only know by pictures or a cousin who breaks the family tradition and becomes pregnant out of wedlock or another cousin who takes his own life before his father is accidently electrocuted by his brother. There are more stories and time spent on families.

When a new family branch is formed? Is it a solid branch that follows the wisdom of the elders and the energy of the youth or is it the black sheep that should be avoided.

Then there are new friends made in school or church or the country club with new names and family traditions. Some might seem very familiar to your family with a house and toys and mom and day and a car and a religion while others are different.

Some have single moms or dads that commit suicide or big houses and fancy cars and clothes or thoughts and values brought up by different life experiences.

So checking ancestry thinking of each generation of family and how their lives changed with travel and desires and requirements and wars and children and all those things a family goes through in time.

When you estimate your time spent on this planet, most of it surrounds family.

And when the others with the same last name are gone there is only one. And that is the new family.