Truths: A tree with many leaves

The last few weeks, maybe even months, have been quite reflective for me… Between the loss of loved ones, holidays and everyday life – I have been made to realize some important things about family.

For much of my adult life – I have tried very hard to capture the spirit of my childhood holiday memories. You know the ones where you remember the whole extended family sitting around the living room sipping cocktails and chatting while the kids played happily in the basement. The entire house filled with aroma of a freshly roasted turkey and the green bean casserole baked in the oven.

If it happens to be Christmas – the gifts are piled around the beautifully decorated tree and the kids are patiently awaiting a surprise visit from Santa. Or maybe its Easter and there are a bunch of eggs hidden in the yard.

It sounds like Martha Stewart was my mom and the Dickens were my family – but while that is not true – these are the memories I hold from my childhood. I was lucky.

(Now who knows what my mom’s version of these holidays were – I can only envision that she was rattled for weeks prior to the events – tackling department store lines since we didn’t have Amazon.com, fighting her way through the grocery store chaos and sweating as she dusted the china cabinet…but for me, I just had to show up and believe that I had the most amazing family holidays ever.)

As the years went on and I grew a bit older – it became clear that I wasn’t raised in the home of the Brady Bunch and my family and its traditions slowly became a little less amazing.

The glisten of extended family tarnished… and soon I would find myself married and taking on the tradition of my new family. Again, mostly perfect – but with it came compromise – whose family for Christmas, Thanksgiving – whose Mom for Mother’s Day… Until 7 years later we had it down path and filed for divorce – changing my family dynamics again.

For a few years as I was a single mom – I did my best to create memories that Abby would cherish (even though she was 2 at the time)… and I continued to grasp at straws to keep what was left of my extended family together. Though, no holiday ever seemed to resemble that of my childhood.

Once again, I found myself married and wiggling my way into a new extended family. One that I had no history with – and one that came with two step-daughters. Certainly this is never how it played out in my dreams.

It was all clumsy for quite awhile – how to create a new history with these people who were now my in-laws – and how to develop a relationship with my new step-daughters without seeming to desperate or too controlling…

Its officially 6 years this Saturday… and after our recent visit to San Diego for Easter – I finally get it.

My parents moved to Florida full-time a few years back, my Aunt and Uncle (I only had one set) fled the family and my brothers became unavailable… My grandma was about the only family who was near enough to share holidays with… My straws were quickly disappearing.

I fumbled for awhile – trying to make sense of it – coming to terms with letting go of my childhood holiday wishes – but I flailed…and I failed.

This past Christmas – I made one last attempt at bringing my family together along with my step-children and grandchildren and for the most part it worked.

Today my grandma is in a nursing home and once again what I knew as a family is changing. I have been left feeling like a doll split in half during a tug of war. Half in one hand and half in the other.

Until last Sunday. When I found myself with Oliver on my lap and Bill on my right and Lindsey and Dave sitting around a table in a beautiful beach side restaurant enjoying Easter brunch.

Yes, Abby was missing and Kristin, Jeffrey and Josee – but this was my immediate family and these were the childhood memories Oliver would have and making them happen was now, essentially, up to me.

No neither my parents or Bill’s mom were with us – or my grandma – and its not that I didn’t miss them, I did, its just that this is my future moving forward – these are the people whom I will have to share a whole new generation of holidays with and these will be the moments that make up a whole new set of memories.

I have doubts that I will ever have everyone sitting around our living room at the same time, I even have doubts that there will be a turkey roasting in my oven… but I do believe that I can re-capture those feelings of possibility, of warmth, of family…

And just what is family anyway? I was reminded last night at a band concert that family is certainly not what used to be its definition.

As Bill and I sat and watched the concert – I could not help but realize that we were sitting with Keith, my exhusband. Carol wasn’t there so it was just us three sitting and talking and laughing…none of us even thinking about the oddity this presents to some people.

This Saturday, Molly, Keith and Carol’s daughter, will make her first communion – and we will be there to support her and to share in the family party afterwards. This August when Jeffrey and Kristin get married, Keith and Carol will be there with us to share the big day.

Its unconventional, but its our reality.

I have tried so hard for so long to create some picture perfect family – some rendition of an oil panting from yesteryear – while all long I was surrounded with people I care about.

Whenever people create family trees – they tend to leave out the branches that sway – the ones who perhaps grew out from the seeds of other trees and somehow found their way entangled with the mighty tree – usually made up of rings bound by “true blood.”

My faith in family was renewed in just the last two days by a revelation that family isn’t something you can force – but it is something you can create – no matter how it came to be.