Family

I've heard it said, and I firmly believe, that the family of the 21st century is made up of friends, not relatives. Now, yeah, admittedly, at first glance this seems to be disavowing one's natural family in favour of a surrogate family of close friends. However, I don't think that's what this means. To me, and the reason I believe in this saying so firmly, this means that family is determined not by blood, but by love. Thus, directly related persons are family, and close friends are family, as there are bonds of love between all concerned (this is particularly noticeable in the raising of young children, for whom the friends of Mum and Dad are introduced as 'Uncle' and 'Aunt,' regardless of the fact that, often as not, they are not actually related). I still think of Uncle Carl and Aunt Lynn, neither of whom are related to me by blood, but they are family. And my mate Joel and I often refer to each other as 'brother,' or 'bro,' because, in our minds, I think we are brothers; I love Joel, he means the world to me; he's family (so are his wife, Julie, and their boy, Damon, for whom I am referred to as 'Uncle Steve').

So why this foray into the question of what constitutes family? Well, as I mentioned in my last post, there has been a death in my family. Last week, my grandfather, Grant Ferguson, whom we called Papa, passed away. He was a wonderful, caring man, one of whom I have many fond memories and will truly miss. I read the obituary, and though it paid loving tribute to an exemplary human being, I was left quite hurt; under the standard 'Survived by' section, there were some glaring omissions. My older sister was listed, as was our cousin Sarah, under grandchildren, but neither myself nor my younger sister were there. Nor were my mother or father mentioned. My younger sister and I were not related to Papa by blood, but he was our grandfather, too, and he always treated us as such; I always thought I was lucky, because I had three sets of grandparents. But my 'aunt,' with whom, admittedly, I've never been very close, wrote the obituary, apparently didn't think of this. And this makes me think that our relationship with Grandma Ruth, Papa's wife, was forgotten, also. So, I'm here to set this right. Grant and Ruth Ferguson were my grandparents, and I loved them very much, and I will miss them, and I look forward to seeing them again when that time comes. We may not have shared the same DNA, but they were family. And no one can take that away from me.

RIP Papa.

-stephen