Since my mother died three years ago my family as it was known to me was blown apart. What that did was to accentuate a sense of aloneness in the world. I do not have any siblings nor do I have any children so I don’t feel I belong to any family unit as such. When I spoke with John about this, it brought home to me the critical difference between a family that I feel is ‘mine’ and a family that I feel is ‘other’. This difference is shared history. When I look at John’s family, I can see that he has had a great deal of shared routines and rituals with his children and wives. I think the birth and presence of children contribute significantly to a couple’s shared history and the development of shared routines and rituals. Though I have heard in many instances the phrase ‘…it’s for the children…’ in a sense, it’s also for the entire family unit. These shared day to day activities and patterns become the fabric of that family unit’s shared historical map- points of reference that bind the unit together and that also marks out the unique topography of one family as compared to another. From age 13 onwards, I have slipped in and out of other people’s family units- mainly through invitations at boarding school to spend exeats, half-term and holidays with friends and their families. They were kind and generous people who took me into their homes, and involved me in their routines and rituals. For me, I always felt like an outsider, keen to fit into their worlds and in that process, often feeling both welcomed and alienated at the same time. This morning, I realised that, unless I have been part of the ‘history making’ process within a family unit otherwise, I would never feel like part of the family nor could I- this is because a shared history and the bond that develops in that process is built up over time. Critical incidents can have the effect of accelerating this process. Ultimately, it is the mundane, the non-critical, the day to day decisions and activities that contribute to a family’s cultural bond. In this context, integration into another family means an immersion in that family in order that these routines and rituals can be learnt but also to be part of that family’s daily evolution. This thought brings to mind a chinese tradition- once married, the woman goes to live with the husbands’ family. In this day and age of independence, this scenario is truly antithetical to our present-day values. Yet revisiting this concept in the light of integration, it does not seem all that crazy. In fact, it seems sensible, even necessary for any person to become part of another’s family unit.
Since writing the passage above, I had a call from my aunt informing me that my uncle has been seriously ill with a rare form of Lymphoma. My sense of family has taken on a different shape.
