Recovering my chosen family
A few weeks ago I was invited to a very special feast. One of my best high school friends has been living in another country for the past 27 years. We have fallen in and out of touch over the years, but overall our friendship has grown and matured. This summer, he and his partner moved back home, about 4 hours drive away from where I live now. When I told him when I would be going home for vacation, he said, “You will not believe who else will be home at that same time!”
It turns out the third person in our little high school trio was also going to be home for her annual vacation. I have only seen her twice since high school, but we lived in each other’s houses throughout our school years. The idea of the three of us being together for the first time in almost 30 years sent us middle-agers into high school squeals!
To be honest, I don’t think about my high school days that much any more. They were hard days for me, and I have had to recover from a lot of what I faced in those days. Unfortunately, that has meant losing touch with a lot of people. Being together with these two again, though, I was able to see my high school days differently.
As the memories began to flow back and forth we laughed. A LOT. We cried, too, as we remembered each other’s parents who have now all passed. But we remembered sitting on the big window which was “our spot,” debate club, drama club, and other escapades. We were not big party types, we rarely drank, we were just always together.
On the way back to our campsite, I started telling my partner some of the less fondly remembered memories of our high school days. As I spoke, with tears in my eyes, I told him that I don’t know how I would have gotten through high school without those two friends. I owe them so much of where I am today.
When I shared that with my friends in our group text, one of us gave us the title, “chosen family”. That wasn’t a phrase 30 years ago, but it makes so much sense to us now. We didn’t reject our birth families, but we chose each other and shared our lives for a time. And even though that time was cut short, the family tie remains. That’s how I know we are family.
When the apostle Paul is concluding his letter to the Hebrews, he tells his readers to “Let mutual love continue” or, as the Common English Bible puts it, “Keep loving each other like family.” (Hebrews 13:1) He doesn’t tell us to keep loving each other like we love our own families. That would be a disaster! He means, let us love each other the way we are supposed to, in that way you know that it’s family, such as when 30 years go by and you still know you can rely on them.
