You Don't Get To Choose Your Family

My neighbor died recently. Don’t feel bad for me, I didn’t know him. He was an old man. He lived with his wife. He walked slowly and he had a poorly trained, quite cantankerous dog that would bark at me every time I passed his house. He rarely left the house because there were two flights of stairs between his front door and the street. He did have visitors occasionally. His daughter would visit every month or two. And someone else, closer to his age. Perhaps a brother. He’d been taken to the hospital in an ambulance three times in the past two years. The third time was just a few weeks ago. He did not return home. Shortly after his last trip to the hospital, his family gathered at his house. It looked like 20-25 people. Kids and adults. Everybody dressed in dark colors, with somber looks on their faces.?

I couldn’t help but wonder where all these people had been. To be fair, I didn’t know the man, he may have been awful and there could be a good reason why nobody visited him. But seeing his family come to his house only after his passing was quite sad. And it made me think. You don’t get to choose your family. This fact plagues some people (due to abuse, poor treatment, or even selfishness), but I think for most people, family, if you’re lucky enough to have it, is a huge positive. It certainly is for me. I have a great family. The fact that I didn’t get to choose my family is nothing but a positive because they’re like built-in love and support in my life. If I had to place a bet, I’d say it wasn’t bad blood that kept my neighbor’s family away these last couple of years. I suspect it was the same thing that keeps us all from visiting family more.

It was life. Busy schedules. Friends. Partners. Kids. Hobbies. Work. Travel. We all have our own lives to live and while living them it's easy to take family for granted. We don’t make the time. We don’t visit. And then we get the call, someone has passed, and there’s a funeral to attend. It’s easy to end up with regrets about where we invested our time. But the truth is that nobody gets it right. Every choice we make is a sacrifice. You can’t get to the end of your life without making sacrifices and you will inevitably regret a few of them.?

As an aside, people who say they have no regrets are full of shit. Do not trust them. They are lying to themselves and they will lie to you. Regret is an expression of a person’s ability to hold themselves accountable.

For most of us, there is a tension between living our lives and spending time with family. It’s a natural tension and it is unresolvable. This, however, does not mean that we should ignore it. In fact, I would argue quite the opposite. Tension is an alert system. You should pay special attention to the areas in life where you feel tension. It’s an indicator that multiple opposing forces are influencing your decision-making. Tension itself is not good or bad, but it is the prerequisite for both good and bad. There is no harmony, dissonance, joy, or pain without tension. Pay attention to it.?

I’m hesitant to conclude with ‘spend more time with family’ because everybody’s situation is different. We each need to manage the tension differently. But what I will say is that you should listen to whatever you’re feeling right now, having read this. Are you feeling guilty for not visiting more? If so, you know what you need to do. Are you feeling like you could go another 10 years without seeing certain members of your family? Maybe you’re right. That’s up to you to figure out. What I will say is that when my neighbor’s family showed up at his house I was reminded of how I felt when my own family gathered after my Grandpa had died.?

It felt like he had boarded a train and I was meant to see him off, but I was late to the station and I missed my chance. All I could do was stand there and look down the empty tracks and know that he was gone.?

Spending time with people you love while they’re here is way better than looking down the tracks after they’ve departed.?

Do with that what you will.???