I grew up in the fifties where a family was a very closely defined unit. The world went by like Noah’s Ark, with all parents marching through it two by two. Divorce was a word uttered as one would a deep, dark secret, and one prominent politician was considered to be unelectable because he was (the voice drops) divorced.
I was an outlier in this Noah’s Ark world, having a widowed mother with no one marching by her side into the ark. At birthday parties all the station wagons would drive up to pick up their particular party goer, mothers and fathers seated on the front bench seats, and siblings drifting around without seat belts in the back. My mother would arrive in our 1948 blue Plymouth sedan, alone in the car, the scene totally out of step with the world as it was.
I did not mind my solitude, but I often felt like an outsider looking through the glass at life as it was supposed to be. Which is probably why I welcome today’s elasticity in the definition of family. At a recent family gathering I had a delightful time talking to two young people who were only tangentially part of my family but were swept up in the day as if they were biologically connected. Everyone deserves to be part of a group of people that cherish them in whatever way they may be connected. If there is love and caring and interest and acceptance, then that is family. Which is why, many years ago, I made my way to that blue Plymouth, with a single mother behind the wheel, with great joy.