The Concept of Family in My Life

I want to visit my Great Great Grandparents yesterday with my Grandmother. Now I’ve gone before with her but this time I was not 9 years old. This time I did not have her yelling at me to stop running. No, this time I was mesmerized by the beauty that it “The Graveyard.” Why do we bury the dead? I think my answer to that is so we have something to visit. Something to remind us of the person who is now six feet under. I asked my Grandma if she has ever gone to a graveyard just to water the plants and look a tomb stones. She looked at me, and with a look of complexity said, “That would just be weird.” That’s when I realized that families visit graveyards to remember the people under the dirt. That day we did not only visit blood relatives, we also visited family friends and the people that shaped my grandma's life. We only visited family that day, at least in my opinion, never once did we visit someones grave that my Grandma or I would not consider fully family.

People can be added to families, ya know, one great example of this is from the barrios of Mexico. Where, “members of the barrio describe the entire area as their home.”[1] A family is sometime thought to be a closed group of blood relatives, but in many cultures the “family” is extended throughout the community a person lives in. The people of the barrios can take a group of people, poor in mind, body and wallet and make a family. A craft we can see ever since Adam accepted Eve, and out came Cain and Abel, family bonds are important. Families, now that we have opened it up can be with any people. With all of the oblong and culturally disdained people, whom can make very successful families, why do we outcast their union? For goodness sakes the original family was filled with incest. I think a homosexual couple raising a child holds no threat to other families. How can they?

I don't believe a group of college students scared out of their wits because of a french teacher who stabbed a kid in the eye,[2] are going to be affected or even about a gay couple getting married. There are so many different kinds and groupings of families, that they can't possibly all be affected by the decision of how one family groups itself. The people in these families are so connected that they would hopefully die for each other, its not just a group you put someone in. Some guy who goes “this is my Bro Steve” may not have the actual family zeal I'm trying to portray. It would be more like the guy in the hospital with bullet wounds saying, “Your my Bro Steve.” The literal thought that a person would die for another is what makes families strong.

When I was going through my initiation to become a Brotherhood member of the Order of the Arrow, we participated in a symbolic blood trading ceremony. We are bound together, we promised to be there for each member, that is Brotherhood. That is the extreme of families, now most likely and hopefully a family member won't have to die for their family, but it should be something that is thought of.

Although family should not just be, “I would die for you Bro” all the time, but instead it should be real. The promise should be portrayed with every action that is done towards a family member. It should be opening the door not because you need to but because you know it would be a nice gesture. It's cleaning the table before asked, and taking out the trash because its full. The small things in a family can show the big things. Giving and receiving small actions, not just receiving the open door or picking a large straw from the chore box. In The Jacket[3] The mother gives the jacket and the son receives it, but there is a flip side. The kid hated the jacket, yet he gave grateful feelings to his mother for buying it, which she received. The both showed a family attitude, maybe not the I would die for you passion, but it is seen in the small actions.