Who's In Your Family?

We often consider the strength of a person’s character in terms of his or her relationship to his or her family.  Someone with strong family values, who is close to his or her family, is perceived to have admirable qualities.  But we all face diverse experiences, and our definitions of family are altered by the style of our upbringings.  A year and a half ago, I visited India for the first time with a stepbrother from my father’s side of the family. My father was from the Punjab. I had reunited with this brother only three years earlier and he just happens to be 25 years older than I.  His adult children had connected with me via Facebook, opening up a whole new side of my family.

My half brother graciously hosted me in New Delhi for two weeks.  I struggled with accepting his brotherly love and care, as it was quite foreign to me, but I appreciated it nonetheless. One day, as we were on our way to visit someone, I asked him who we were visiting, and he told me that we were going to see “our cousin.”  “Not really our cousin,” I thought aloud.  But he informed me that we were indeed going to see my cousin – her father had been my uncle!  The visit with my cousin was perfectly delightful, but I felt a slight detachment from this side of my family – this side of myself.  These were members of my family, because we were linked by blood.  But they were not the family I had grown up with, and they had not contributed as much to my growth and development.

My mum, sister, grandparents, my godparents and my best friend Kate and her family have been with me through thick and thin.  I learned my most important values from them, and they shaped the person I became.  The love I received from these people created my foundation.  The closeness I feel to them shapes my definition of my family – even though I am not related to my godparents or to Kate and her family by blood.  There is no question I think of them as family.

My intern is fond of the idea that friends are the family we choose.  We are shaped by love, not necessarily blood, though of course there is great importance in biological family as well.  Unfortunately, in some cases biological families are not `always the best people for us.  Those who provide us the love and support we need through many different times become a different sort of family.  This family’s love gives us strength to take responsibility for ourselves and grow forward with confidence.  Ultimately, our family is whomever we decide it is. 

A Call to Arms

I watched the news all afternoon, I stayed up late and watched more, then turned on the TV over my morning tea and bagel and watched some more. I was trying to get my head around what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on that cold near winter’s morning.

It seems like this sort of person-on-person violence is escalating, but is it really? People have been harming people for millennia in the name of religion, power, land, natural resources and material wealth. This happens everyday all over the world, in fact on the very same day as the sad events in the US, a man entered a primary school in China and stabbed and wounded 22 children. It is reported that several of the children had severed fingers and ears! Are we just seeing more of this because we have access to rapid and numerous forms of communication?

Then we look at the heartbreaking fact that bystanders on the Time Square subway platform had 22 seconds to help Ki-Suck Han climb off the tracks before he was hit and killed by an oncoming train … but they did not reach out to him.

I ask myself what is going on? We can blame guns, lack of education, the slackening of moral values, the absence of religion, etc. but I think there is something more fundamental missing. I think we are losing personal connections and support. Whilst I am a huge proponent in my work for personal responsibility, I do also feel that it is a personal responsibility of each and everyone one of us to help our fellow man in the best way we know how. Any little act of kindness will help.

This all starts at the grass roots level. And this is why I have called this blog entry “A Call to Arms”. It is our responsibility to reach out a hand to, or put our arms around, those who might need our help or support. Sometimes a hug is all we need. We don’t always need people to fix our problems or issues. We just need to know people care, are around and that we have been "seen".

People just want to feel safe, and this will be the biggest challenge parents of the surviving children at Newtown will face when supporting their children in the weeks and month to come.

At the same time, those of us who feel obliged to step up and take a stand against this increasing dissatisfaction and discontent with each other should find ways to be as vocal and as involved as we are comfortable with. It’s time to band together and raise our “arms” and “fight” as “warriors” going into “battle” for a peaceful world.