Sharing the Pew by Liz Flaherty

"Family is family, whether it’s the one you start out with, the one you end up with, or the family you gain along the way." — Unknown

I love my family. Duane, the kids we had and the ones they brought home to us, the grandkids, my sisters-in-law, my brother. Nieces and nephews who fill in so many places. I love the memories of those I've lost. The losses still hurt. A lot. 

But family goes so much deeper than its description, doesn't it? Sometimes family comes in the form of hospice nurses and hospital chaplains and healthcare workers who share your pain during loss. It's neighbors who wave, a dusty baker, high school friends you don't have to explain things to because they were there. They remember. They care. Family is your kids' friends, the cat that followed them home, the person who sits with you when you're scared and alone. 

Family is the other people in the pew at church where you sit, because...I don't know why it is...but maybe God won't know you're there if you don't sit in the same pew every time. You recognize when the person just down from you is too quiet, or pale, or...worse...not there two weeks in a row. 

I have best friends. Not just one, but a few, and they are more than friends. I'm not even sure what gives a relationship that particular designation, but I know when it's there. Best friendship is where secrets go to live and only come out when you feel you have to talk about them or go crazy in the silence. It's where you start talking as if you'd never left off even if you haven't seen them for years. Best friendship is family. If it is lost, you mourn, and the scar tissue on your heart thickens.

Sometimes family is hard. Politics not only makes strange bedfellows, it creates cavernous divides between people whose connections are deep and--to me--less complicated than ones that don't go so deep. Although you wish people you consider family shared your political feelings, chances are some of them don't. Likewise, it would be nice if you shared core religious beliefs, but chances are you won't always. 

My own siblings and I have been known to look at each other and ask, "Where did you grow up?" Because none of us grew up in the same house. While our memories were born in the same place, they took different routes into the stories we told. 

There are divisions in family. There is anger. There is injustice, sometimes untruth, sometimes more bitterness than can be gotten past. But if family is a church, you still sit in the same pew. You pass the box of tissues around, shake with laughter together at things no one else finds funny, and hold each other's little ones in your lap because they're yours, too. Your shoulders will remain stiff and almost not touching. Almost. 

It's the almost that saves us. One of my brothers and I were so divergent in every possible way. We didn't see each other often, he hung up on me, I had no patience with him. We had a history of rolling our eyes at things the other one said. But I am grateful that the last words I said to him were that I loved him. That his last words to me were that he loved me, too. 

One of my best friends has dementia. I haven't seen her in years, although I still send cards sometimes. Presents occasionally. She doesn't respond, but her daughter sends pictures and I still see her smile. 

Family isn't perfect. It's not always constant or kind. But, again, if it was a church--and it is indeed a gathering of souls, although sometimes a bumpy, grouchy one--our shoulders are still touching in the same pew. I'm so grateful.

Have a good week. Call your mother. Be nice to somebody.