I have a taken family. I chose them for myself. They are wonderful and talented and hopeful. Closer than friends but they don’t have to live with me, nor I with them, so it works out quite well.
Among my taken family, I have my brothers: Trev, Danny, Ben, Paul, Dave, Rob and Vic, several uncles, two or three sisters and half a dozen aunties, bequeathed to me by my blood family.
I really couldn’t tell you if it’s wisdom or sentimentality that makes me think it but there’s something good even in missing people. Actively missing people is hard. It’s one of the hardest things there is that can’t possibly be avoided.
People are a fact of life and occasionally, there’ll be one or two who mean the whole damn world. I truly believe that a person can’t quit grief. You just have to work through it until it has finished with you. And okay, this is not sounding particularly chipper.
But I miss them because I love them. And that is positive.
The picture was taken by me, somewhere around 1990, of my parents.
Anyway, boom, there you have it – day fifty of #365HappyDays – family, both blood and taken.