FAMILY IS HARD

Family.  I find myself perplexed quite often lately by the very concept.  For all the genetic  material you share with people, don't you sometimes look at your relatives and wonder "Where did he or she come from?"
I come from a family of eleven and for all our similarities (primarily the blue eyes and the tenacity), I am often left asking myself how people raised by the same mother could all turn out so differently.
Our household was pretty much a case of controlled chaos but we all coexisted relatively peacefully until a few years ago when a schism was caused that magnified the differences among us.  So I am now part of a family where some members don't speak to each other.  There are probably a million reasons why, but it would take an army of therapists to get to the root of it all.
I never in a thousand years thought it would end up this way, but the one thing I have learned is my family is in good company.  I have a first cousin whom I barely know, but I do know she has rarely spoken to her siblings in the last 30 years.  They know where she is and at least that she is alive, but that is the extent of the relationship.  I was visiting an old family friend last week whose wife told me she has a brother "somewhere".  She has no idea where he is or what he is doing.  And I hear this all the time from more and more people.  It's sad enough when the split happens with siblings, but I think it is even more heartbreaking when parents and children are estranged.  I suppose that reflects the fact that I lost both of my parents at fairly young ages and so I don't understand why someone would voluntarily cut their parents out of their lives.
Now I understand that some relationships are so toxic that "separating with love" is absolutely necessary for your own sanity, but most of the cases I hear about seem more about grown people being unable to sit down and 
act like grownups.  Some people are still nursing childhood hurts ("Mom liked you best!) or jealous of a  sibling's success.  Throw an unreasonable in law or two into the mix and it gets even uglier.
It is ironic that while churches and politicians stress the importance of "The Family", more and more people seem to be choosing to create their own family units, leaving their biological families behind.  Anyone who has adopted knows that family is more than a shared biology, but blood is supposed to have a hold on us that is primal. The family members who have decided I am not worth talking to any more can tell themselves I am no longer their family, but the fact remains that we are bound by blood.   I have filled the spaces in my life with people who care about me and believe in me and have chosen to truly know me. In fact a few weeks go a young acquaintance told me in conversation that I was now part of his family and it made my day.  Family can largely be defined by blood but my family includes so much more than that and for that I am grateful.