We are family!

"This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It's little...and broken...but still good. Yeah, still good." - Lilo & Stitch

None of us fall from the sky. We are all created. This means we are part of a family - that family might be only one other person, but a family we still are. 

Now, some of us are lucky enough to experience wonderful and functioning families from birth...which will still leave us scarred and traumatized in one way or a few others...because life is what it is and even the most beautiful souls aren't perfect...

But a lot of people do not even have this better beginning. For them, family is what breaks you, what hates you, what uses you up and then spits you out. And becoming healthy and whole involves setting strict boundaries with the family you were born into. Which can leave you feeling alone...unwanted...

The miracle? Families aren't just made, they can also be chosen! It has even been said that our capacity for friendship is God's way of making up for our families ;)

What we know to be "family" - people biologically connected - is a "family", yes. But it is only one type. "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof." - Richard Bach

"Family" means having people who are participants in, and witnesses to, your life. "Family" is people who stand by you, who hold you, when everything goes to hell. "Family" is to always have someone to love and someplace to go. If your blood is where that family starts - you are blessed. If you cannot have that - all is not lost.

You can find your family, and it can mean just as much as all of us think blood should. In fact, once you broaden your perspective of "family", you might just find that they have surrounded you without you noticing. 
Let's stop feeling alone and/or abandoned; let's relish the family we have - however it might have come to be!

Death and dignity

If you know me at all…no wait, scratch that…you don’t really have to know me in the slightest to know that I am a MASSIVE (in this case literally and figuratively  ) fan of Terry Pratchett. So of course I follow his Facebook page. And yesterday they advertised an auction for a dinner with the man himself, with all funds raised in this way going to support “Dignity in Dying”. Now, notwithstanding the fact that I would sell all my possessions and organs (as well as anybody’s that I have ever known) to be the one to have dinner with Terry, it also got me thinking. “Dignity in dying” is not exactly one of those causes you can use to win Miss Universe – it’s too depressing. But, knowing that Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago, I can see how this would become a cause worth investing in. Funny how priorities change as life takes its turns with us.

Which got me to thinking about “dignity” and “dying”, and about how these two can (and should/would?) go together. For “dignity” can sound like such a very passive, stiff-upper-lip kind of thing…so “dignity in dying” can sound so much like giving up, giving over, hanging around – in a dignified manner, mind – until your time is done. And yet, one of my favourite poems (anthems?) by Dylan Thomas tells us: “Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light”. So how do we reconcile these two seemingly very different understandings? Can we? Should we?

Living = surrounding yourself

For that I think the answer is not in the dying, but in the living of it all. Of course, in those last moments of our lives, we will all wonder about one or two things when looking back upon our journey. The trick, I think, is how much there is to wonder about – in my experiences with death and dying, the most fear and desperation are felt by those who realise that they have waited too long with most everything. Who know, in that final moment, that too much has gone unsaid, undone, unthought. Is that the same as saying that to live to the full – to get to an end with mostly peace – is to rage and burn and rave all our desires to the full? No matter who or what you leave in your wake? Or in what condition? Since it is only you on your own in those dying moments?

And then “dignity” clicked for me – for to live a dignified live is not to live a life without passion and fire, but always living it with the knowledge that you are not the only person being affected by your journey. So, when talking about dignity in death, I think it’s more about the people you leave behind and how they are left. And the balance – that very precarious and flighty thing – is to be found in exactly “dignity in dying”…for then we are living our lives and our passions to the full, realising that we only have so much time in which to do all we desire; but to also do it in such a way that those around us are inspired, are ignited by our passion to find and follow their own, are strengthened by our lives and our journeys. When we manage that, our life, our death, will be something to mostly smile about…something that pushes people onward and upward…something to be proud of.