About Family

Someone once said that you can always go home to family because they have to accept you....That's pretty cynical and not necessarily something you can count on, even with family, though I believe that's the way it plays out more often than not - blood is thicker, and all that....But at its heart family is so much deeper and more intimate - it was where you began your life's journey with that first intake of breath, and where you still catch your breath when those special things occur and you say to yourself, "Only in family..." This was where you learned the meaning of me and we that is so much of what life is all about - especially the dynamic interplay between these two....It is the latter of these two that allows you to get close to another person, to find intimacy, be it with a friend or a lover...

Family was where you first learned how to crawl, to stand and take that first step, and to get back up each time you fell down - getting back up each time is the meaning of courage, and the primary ingredient in mastery....It was where you experienced hot, the taste and texture of mashed peas, what it felt like to stand in the rain, at least until your Mom found out, and the smell of new-mown alfalfa on the morning air for those of you who grew up in the country....It was where you learned that anger kills and love heals, though you probably didn't learn until later that the former came all too easily, and that the latter requires work and takes its own time - another duality to work out as life unfolds....It was where you first experienced loss and the happiness of new beginnings - the former when your best friend moved away, your pet hamster died, or you lost your favorite uncle to cancer; the latter in the smell of the earth with the first rains of spring, the first day of school in the fall, and the day your grandfather took you on your first bus ride....Family was where you were forged, and it is in life's challenges that you see what you are made of....Finally, it was where you first uttered that word that stays with you even today - Mom...

....Family is all about who we are and who we can become - and who we can become is based on what we take forward with us...