The Path to Change

Within the last 3 weeks our family has gained, and lost, a member. My sister married her partner, but soon after my mom’s sister lost hers to cancer. While I’m still processing the news of the latter, I’ll dedicate this post to my beloved family (and after all, my beloved global family).

My sister’s wedding was incredibly beautiful, almost as much as she was. One day afterwards while Amy was out running a couple errands, Joe and I had some time to bond. We had gotten along really well before then, but this time we had a few solid hours to just talk. We discussed life, love, religion, movies and abstract concepts, artificial intelligence and the singularity… all the good stuff. I felt like I can trust him and come to him now just as if I could with other family. One thing he said really stood out to me. “I’m your brother now, and I love you—not because I’m obligated to.”  Not brother “in-law.” Brother. Welcome to the family, Joe.

When I tell people how many siblings I have, I generally say “three sisters and a brother.”  But the reality is, they’re only “half” siblings, and now they’re all married. So what defines a true brother or sister? Full blood? No, because my half siblings have always been my real siblings. And what about their partners? What about my extended family? Where does the “family” net end? I’ve truly learned that everywhere I go, I run into family. I consider my best friend my sister. I’ve met the kind of family members that will put everything down to help you up. The family members that are very opinionated. The black sheep. The sheep sheep. The troubled or lost members. The really smart ones. So many.

And not very many share my last name. In fact, the majority of my family, within even a small-medium sized net, does not share my last name. Yet I call them my sisters and brothers, my cousins (first, second, third, fourth, etc.), aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews, and then all the in-laws. The only thing is that in the English language, we stop after a certain branch of the family tree gets too long. Is that were our net ends? Once there’s no word to describe the relation? Because surely you could bump into a random person not knowing you shared the same great great great grandparent through a marriage and not call that person your family, let alone recognize the ability to do so.

It simply blows my mind that people stop considering people their family simply because the branch splits too far for them to put in the effort to recognize its origin. Yet we are all a part of the same tree. Is this not incredibly obvious why every human on this planet should be considered our family? Even the bible got that one right—we are all children of the world. Why then, in this wonder-full world, would you ever desire to harm your brother? I understand, sometimes a person or people in our family can be incredibly toxic, hurting our other mutual brothers and sisters. But if I were the one hurting my brother, I’d hope that my  sister would pull me aside and try to reason with me and love me, show me my mistakes—versus locking me up, or worse, totally abandoning me by ending my life in the name of justice.  This world is too big, I’m afraid, for all of us to love one another equally. But the day we start actually trying is the day we will be one step closer to world peace, heaven on earth.

We are all going through the same cycle of life. “With a ‘should do this’ and a ‘should do that,’ everybody’s just trying to do good.”  This is a common reminder from Wookiefoot that I tell myself. My kindred couchsurfer brother Jacob often tells me not to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders because we are not alone, and that so many people are trying to make this world a better place. The difference between “good” and “evil” is subjective, in all reality. That is why my brother in another culture thinks it is okay to carry out female genital mutilation so that my young sister will not be distracted in life by the pleasures of sex. I have many reasons against this practice, but from the eyes of my brother, he is doing a good thing for her. “As long as it’s defined in terms of good and evil, hurt people will always hurt people.” Our family members do strange things; sometimes very hurtful things. But the real shame, in my opinion, lies in our terrible reactions to such things. I recently listened to an hour long podcast by Sam Harris as he interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali about Islamism and how to combat Jihadism with reason rather than bombs. I would give some of the answers, but I admit the concept is a little hard to wrap my head around and I’ll have to go give it another listen before fully voicing my opinion on the matter. I highly suggest you give it a listen also, and you can do so by clicking here; it’s very enlightening.

Joe, I am so lucky to call you my brother, and thank you for providing a comfort zone in which to open up as your sister. My heart radiates out to my mom who let go of her own brother yesterday, and my aunt and the rest of my family; and my family across the nation—at Standing Rock, in prisons, in schools, at the White House, in Syria, in warzones, in hospitals... So many people to love. So many brothers in sisters in pain today. Death is inevitable, but when I see a painful journey into that darkness, my heart aches with the weight of millions who are also on that journey. Rick’s spirit lives on, his body returned to the Mother Earth. Welcome to the family.

*Edit:  If anyone reading this has thoughts on this subject, I would really like to hear them. Casting our family net across all of humanity and beyond has many implications, both philosophical and pragmatic. I’m curious to see how other people feel. 

    *Edit 2:  I'm always thinking about where I want to go and what I want to do in life, and between traveling this summer and writing this very post, I added "foster parent" to my bucket list. I feel it would be a truly amazing and fulfilling situation considering I am ethically against birthing my own child. I love when the road ahead of me becomes clearer as I walk forward, even though no one knows where these paths lead. 

So much love