Kith & Kin

To know (kith) me is to love me and wonder how my relatives (kin) stand it.

K is for kith and kin, who are not estranged from each other. Oddly (strangely?) enough, kith and kin are the first to offer "Hello, stranger" when out of contact for awhile. No wonder the wireless family plan is so popular - being known is part of being loved/accepted. Conversely, that which is unknown to us is what we consider uncouth (or unkith), strange, or at least awkwardly unacceptable.

This insight tempts me to equate the new-found interest with the undead (vampires and zombies) with an unconventional attention to the unknown (those who are not kith and kin.) I say "new-found interest" because history shows, in the form of excavated graves, the obsessive fear of the undead as contrary to what is known and accepted as honored burial of the deceased. Stones, and headstones in particular, at the gravesite were not just ways of showing respect but of weighing/keeping down the spirit of the deceased.

In speaking with a funeral director, I was told that a widow persisted in her concern that her husband was not buried properly to the point that his body was excavated. Sure enough, his feet were positioned where his head should have been (at the headstone.) Forget about vampires and zombies, I'm going to start taking kith and kin seriously.