Blood, Water, and the People We Call Family
I went to a family reunion this weekend.
A big one.
Like 267 people big.
Two hundred and sixty-seven people gathered in one place who, through blood, marriage, or some branch of this ridiculously enormous family tree, are somehow connected.
Apparently, I'm related to approximately half the damn county.
And honestly?
That isn't even much of an exaggeration.
Our family has books.
Actual freaking books explaining who married who, who had who, which branch everybody came from, and how the hell we're all related.
Because apparently once your family tree gets big enough, you need reference materials.
If you meet somebody around here with one of a handful of certain last names, sooner or later somebody is going to say:
"Hang on. Let me get the book and see how you're related."
Not if you're related.
How.
There's a difference.
Then out comes the book.
Pages start flipping.
Fingers start tracing names.
"Okay, so his grandma was..."
Yep.
"...and she married..."
Uh-huh.
"...whose dad was your..."
Okay.
"...so technically you're..."
Related.
We're related.
I believe you.
Somewhere around the third great-grandparent you've lost me, and I'm just going to accept whatever cousin status you've assigned me.
And I actually love that.
There's something pretty damn cool about somebody caring enough to write all of this shit down.
Generations of it.
Marriages.
Births.
Deaths.
Names of people most of us never met but who had to exist, fall in love, have babies, survive some shit, and keep going for those 267 people to be standing there that day.
That's history.
That's roots.
That's where we came from.
But if we're being completely honest here...
That's not the only reason I went.
I went for the food.
Fuck restaurants. Give me family reunion food any damn day.
Crockpots, casseroles, deviled eggs, salads that don't contain a single piece of lettuce, desserts made from somebody's grandma's recipe, and dishes you can't identify but put on your plate anyway because whoever brought it clearly knows what they're doing.
You can't order that shit anywhere.
Everybody brings their thing, and somehow 267 people's worth of recipes, foil-covered dishes, and "you've gotta try this" turns into one of the best damn meals you'll have all year.
Grandma Loretta's Carrot Jello.... Hillary Craig and Sharlyn Franzen know exactly what I'm talking about...
So yes, I went for the family and the history.
But I also went for the food.
I'm not ashamed.
Priorities.
Out of those 267 people, though?
I probably knew 30 by name.
Maybe.
Some I know well.
Some I love dearly.
Some I recognized.
Some I knew I should know.
And some I smiled at while internally thinking:
I know we're related somehow, but I haven't got a damn clue who you are.
And apparently that's okay.
We've got a book for that.
But standing there among all those people got me thinking about family.
Because shortly before that reunion, I had been somewhere completely different.
We had stopped at a farm to pick up some things we'd bought from an auction.
The auction happened because a man had died a couple months ago.
And these people?
They're not my blood.
There isn't a book anywhere that connects us.
No great-grandparent.
No distant cousin.
No marriage four generations back.
Nothing.
Yet they're family.
Not technically.
Not biologically.
Not according to DNA or whatever official measurement we're supposed to use.
But try telling my heart that.
These are salt-of-the-earth people.
Good people.
The kind who become part of your life, and your kids' lives, without anybody ever sitting down and deciding that's what's happening.
They just do.
They show up enough times.
They love hard enough.
They become safe enough.
And one day you realize the word friend doesn't really cover it anymore.
We were standing around the farm looking at the things left behind.
And there were a lot of things.
He was a project guy.
A big-dream project guy.
He saved things because he had ideas for them.
Building materials.
Parts.
Pieces.
Things that might come in handy someday.
And, because this is a farm we're talking about, plenty of random shit too.
Anyone need a seatless Honda motorcycle frame?
Random farm parts?
Building materials?
Things we have absolutely no fucking idea what they are?
Because we've got options.
Some of it had been saved for projects.
Some of it probably had a perfectly reasonable purpose at some point.
Some of it was just shit that accumulated because that's what happens when you live on a farm long enough.
And while we were looking around at all of it, she said:
"It's just dust."
And fuck.
That one got me.
Because she wasn't really talking about the stuff.
Not entirely.
The farm was still there.
The house was still there.
The sheds were still there.
All those projects, parts, tools, and random pieces of a lifetime were still there.
But he wasn't.
And you could feel it.
I don't know another way to explain it.
You could feel that he was gone.
The whole place felt different.
Somehow emptier, even though it was still completely full of his things.
She was getting ready to move into town.
The grandkids would be moving into the farmhouse.
And I love that part.
Because another generation gets to start another lifetime there.
They'll live there.
Love there.
Fight there.
Laugh there.
Raise kids there.
Fix shit.
Break shit.
Make memories.
Probably collect their own piles of random shit that nobody knows what to do with someday.
Life continues.
That's beautiful.
But beautiful doesn't make grief hurt any fucking less.
Because standing there, you could see the hole.
Her heart had this giant, gaping space where another person had lived for so long.
And I hurt for her.
I hurt for all of them.
Because I love those people.
And we don't share a single drop of blood.
Then I went to a reunion with 267 people I actually do.
Well.
Shit.
Isn't that interesting?
Because we've all heard it.
Blood is thicker than water.
Family first.
Family forever.
Blood is blood.
You only get one family.
And listen...
I'm not here to shit on blood family.
I'm not.
I love my family.
There were people at that reunion I love fiercely.
People who carry pieces of my childhood.
People who remember people I've lost.
People whose faces carry familiar features.
People whose hugs have decades behind them.
People who know where I came from because they came from there too.
Blood can run deep as hell.
But can we also admit something?
Sometimes blood is thin as fuck.
Sometimes the only thing connecting two people is DNA and a line in a book.
That's it.
They don't know each other.
They don't call.
They don't show up.
They don't know each other's kids.
They don't know what's happening in each other's lives.
They might not even recognize each other at Walmart.
Still family?
Sure.
Technically.
Get the book.
We'll prove it.
And that's not necessarily anyone's fault either.
Families grow.
People move.
Life happens.
Generations spread out.
You can share history with someone without sharing everyday life with them.
But then there are people who aren't in the damn book at all.
And somehow they become the people who know you best.
How the hell does that happen?
Life.
That's how.
Life has a funny way of handing us people.
You meet them through work.
Horses.
Kids.
School.
Sports.
Neighbors.
Marriage.
Divorce.
Careers.
Hobbies.
Death.
Grief.
Some random Tuesday.
Sometimes they walk into your life during one of the best seasons you've ever had.
Sometimes they meet you when your whole fucking life is on fire.
Sometimes you don't even particularly like each other at first.
Then life keeps throwing you together.
And little by little...
something changes.
They show up.
You show up.
Their kids become important to you.
Your kids become important to them.
You celebrate things together.
Eventually, you grieve things together too.
You know their stories.
They know yours.
They know when you're full of shit.
They know when "I'm fine" actually means:
I'm holding this motherfucker together with duct tape and caffeine, so please don't ask me another question unless you're prepared for the answer.
And somewhere along the way, without anybody announcing it...
they become family.
No paperwork.
No DNA.
No matching last name.
No page in the book.
Just...
ours.
Maybe that's what has been rolling around in my head since this weekend.
We talk a lot about bloodlines.
But we don't talk nearly enough about heart ties.
Bloodlines are inherited.
Heart ties are built.
And those fuckers can be strong.
They're built in really ordinary moments.
Did you make it home?
Need help?
I'll come over.
I've got the kids.
I'll feed the horses.
Call me when you get there.
Sit down.
Eat something.
You don't have to explain.
I'm here.
That's it.
Nothing profound.
Nobody makes an announcement.
Nobody says, "Today marks the official day this person became family."
It happens quietly.
One ordinary moment stacked on another.
Then another.
Then another.
Until one day somebody hurts and somehow you hurt too.
That's family.
At least it sure as hell feels like it to me.
And let's talk about the other uncomfortable part.
Blood families can absolutely fall apart.
We've all seen it.
Hell, most of us have lived some version of it.
Divorce.
Death.
Jealousy.
Money.
Land.
Inheritance.
A house.
A farm.
Grandma's dishes.
Who got what.
Who deserved what.
Who showed up.
Who didn't.
Who said something.
Who didn't say something.
Who sided with who.
And suddenly people who spent their childhoods sleeping under the same roof can't sit at the same Thanksgiving table.
Family becomes famine.
Family becomes foe.
Sometimes it isn't even dramatic.
Sometimes people just drift.
Life happens.
People move.
Kids grow up.
Generations spread farther apart.
Phone calls get fewer.
Christmases change.
And eventually you have two people who share blood, history, and ancestors...
but not life.
Meanwhile, somebody you met through your kids knows the code to your garage.
Explain that one.
That's why I'm not sure I completely buy the simple version of blood is thicker than water anymore.
Because I've seen blood hold people together through absolute hell.
And I've seen blood mean damn near nothing.
I've also watched people with no biological obligation whatsoever step up and love someone like their own.
Friends become sisters.
Neighbors become grandparents.
Coworkers become lifelong friends.
Horse people become family.
People step into children's lives and stay there long enough that eventually nobody gives a shit whether the DNA matches.
They love them.
The kids love them.
That's enough.
Maybe family isn't one thing.
Maybe that's where we screw it up.
There's the family we're born into.
The family we marry into.
The family we inherit.
The family we lose.
The family we walk away from.
The family that walks away from us.
The family we find.
And the family we build.
Some people share our blood and barely know our story.
Some people share absolutely no blood with us and can hear something is wrong in the first two seconds of a phone call.
Some relatives know our ancestry.
Some friends know our soul.
And if we're really damn lucky?
Some people get to be both.
That's what this weekend did to me.
I stood among 267 people whose connection to me can literally be looked up in a book.
"Hang on. Let me see how you're related."
Flip a few pages.
There it is.
Proof.
And shortly before that, I stood with people whose connection to me couldn't be proven on paper if our lives depended on it.
No book.
No blood.
Nothing official.
But my heart didn't need proof.
And maybe that's the part that matters.
Because I keep hearing those words from the farm.
"It's just dust."
Eventually, so much of the shit we spend our lives worrying about probably is.
The stuff.
The money.
The equipment.
The house.
The things we save.
The projects we're definitely getting around to someday.
The random building materials.
The parts nobody can identify.
The seatless Honda motorcycle frame growing weeds beside a shed.
Someday, somebody else is going to be standing there asking:
"What the hell were they keeping this for?"
And we won't be there to answer.
But maybe that's exactly why the people matter so damn much.
The people whose lives we touched.
The people who touched ours.
The kids we loved whether they were "ours" or not.
The people we showed up for.
The people who showed up for us.
The people who started out as strangers and somehow became people we couldn't imagine our lives without.
Our family tree tells the story of where we came from.
And I love that we have the damn books to prove it.
But maybe there's another family tree nobody can put on paper.
One built from all those heart ties we've collected along the way.
And holy shit, imagine trying to make that book.
It would be messy as hell.
Branches going everywhere.
No biological logic whatsoever.
People connected through horses and jobs and kids and marriages and divorces and grief and laughter and careers and hobbies and probably some really questionable decisions.
People who weren't there at the beginning.
People who might not be there at the end.
People who came into our lives for a season.
And people who came into our lives and never really left.
Good luck charting that shit.
But I think it would tell one hell of a story.
Not just the story of where we came from.
The story of who we belonged to.
And who belonged to us.
So yeah.
Blood can be thick.
Blood can run deep.
Blood matters.
But blood can also become thin as water.
And sometimes the water?
Sometimes the water gets pretty damn fucking thick.
Because family isn't only the people whose names can be traced back to yours in a book.
Sometimes family is the person who showed up so many times that eventually your heart forgot they weren't technically supposed to be family in the first place.
Sometimes it's someone who helped raise a child they didn't create.
Someone who loved them like a grandchild without needing matching DNA to make it official.
Sometimes it's the people whose loss makes your own chest hurt.
Sometimes it's the people whose kitchen feels like yours.
Whose kids are yours.
Whose people become your people.
Blood may give us roots.
But life grows some pretty wild fucking branches.
And maybe that's okay.
Maybe that's exactly how it's supposed to be.
Because at the end of all of this, when somebody else is sorting through our things and deciding what's worth keeping and what's "just dust," I don't think the greatest measure of our family will be how many names can be traced back to ours.
Maybe it'll be how many hearts can.
The people we chose.
The people who chose us.
The people who stayed.
The people who showed up.
The people we loved without needing a reason why we were supposed to.
Blood tells us where we came from.
But I think the heart gets a say in who we call home.
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