Friends or Family?

Whew!

My little front lawn is now newly mown, if not edged. That will have to wait for tomorrow morning, as it is already over 80 degrees outside. Hopefully I will have the fortitude to deal with it before I sit down here for my morning therapy, which is what I consider this board to be.

Alice is busy visiting her grandchildren. I cannot hope to run a thread with her skill, wit, and repartee, but, since I miss her, as do many of us, I will attempt to get one going.

I made an off-topic comment earlier today, one I heard by Dr. Wayne Dyer, on a PBS program based on his book, The Power of Intention:

"Our friends are God's way of making up for our relatives."

I am in something of a tizzy right now, because I have two different sets of those relatives coming here this weekend. Saturday, my brother and his family are coming to SA. The last time they were here was August of 2002. I had been living in the city for about two months, and had yet to find this new subdivision, or the lot that would become the site for my home here. They have never seen the house, so I would like to present it at its best. My brother and I were close growing up, but as grown-ups, our lives and viewpoints have gone in very different directions. We love each other, but do not really approve of each other. When my brother first married (at 37), his new wife and I became fast friends. Over the years, she has become more and more my brother's wife, and so, a relative. Their son, my nephew, a very special young man, will be turning thirty soon, and is heading out to LA for a new life, and doesn't want to leave without a visit. He is bringing his parents with him. I am taking them to a near-by Tex-Mex restaurant for our meal. A public place will likely be safer. I don't know whether the meal will be lunch or dinner. They have merely announced they will be here Saturday; they have not yet told me when Saturday.

Sunday's dilemma is quite different. My daughter's in-laws are joining the family dinner. They are in the process of retiring here, and will probably be a regular part of what is becoming a family thing. I like them a lot, and am glad they are moving here, but they are very picky eaters, and since it is the last weekend of the month, my grocery budget is not at its best. And as pleased as I am that they are moving here, I am aware that it will put an added strain on my daughter, who already feels that she must split her available family time between her father and me. (He usually gets Saturday.)


So much for my current family situations. Here is my question: When you have to choose, who do you consider first, your family or your friends?

See, I'm already messing up. Alice would have been much more succinct explaining her background info.


Ann

I know what you mean. I remember when I was getting married, my dad had one page of the guest list headed "Family and Relatives." Family being those who were considered friends and relatives being those who we had to invite anyway.

Ann

When one has a bunch of kids, friends are scarce. No one asks eight people to dinner unless they are relatives. So my friends are few and my relatives are many.

But this weekend I will be spending with five of the dearest friends I have ever had. They are my past sorority sisters I shared a house with. It was a large Victorian house where sixteen of us lived in study rooms on the first and second floors and all slept in the ballroom on the third. Never since have I made friends like these five women. We will talk about old times and new times. We will promise to get together again soon. One was one of my main support people when I was sickest, calling frequently and sending me a basket of snacks and many cards. She lives in Tennessee and we always stop to see her and her husband when we head south.

I would have to say my family is more important, but some more so than others. I see my brother's widow once a year although she lives about ten miles away. I saw my brother's daughter and her family when they came to our cabin last week.

But life has changed. I listen to problems but I can't think of solutions or offer any. They are truly on their own. We are having a group to watch the fireworks from our deck on July 4th, but it will be potluck and simple.

Carol

Circumstances selected my friends. Chance selected those related tenuously by blood. I prefer the company of friends.

I guess I'll have to make do with you lot. The things a girl has to do.

Shelagh,

I'd take this bunch any day.

Carol

I thought about this today while I was picking the black-eyed peas. My children are my family. They are my friends.

Of the people that I know that I could call friend who are not my children and not my David, are here. I wonder what that says about me.

I have my animal friends,

Oh, I know a lot of people. They are not like me in the least, they and I have a repartee but it is a laughing sort of thing that means nothing and says nothing.

Is friendship a shallow thing, a surface thing, and are we attracted to message boards because we can be more our own self and find something in other people that is us.

Love,
Betty

Oh, my. Betty. In my mind I am sitting on Granma Windham's porch, with my little bowl while my mom and granma both have huge bowls and we are all shelling black-eyed peas. I am fascinated by the speed in my mom's hands, and the deft skill in granmas, in spite of the knuckles swollen by her "rheumatism." I am struggling with each pod, trying to get it open, finally managing to release the peas into my bowl as granma comments that my bowl is already half-full while theirs are barely started. I am four years old.

Sometimes, some family members are worth the trouble.

Ann

Dear Ann,
I see you there on the proch with your feet dangling and your mom and gandma smiling. How nice and what a loving vision that is.

You are part of my family and you are no trouble.

Love,
Betty

Love,
Betty

I sometimes think of those grammas of long ago and what they would have said on a messageboard like this, how it would have given them a place to speak from their hearts with others.

Carol

Dear Carol,
You know, it has given us gramma's a place to speak, too. I imagine that those old gramma's would not have said what was in their hearts in those days. Look at us now! Our hearts are blurting stuff we would never have said to anyone 30 years ago.

I wonder if people who never met in the olden days and wrote letters to people they never met had the same raport as people do on this message board.

I used to write letters long ago, wait for the letter in response, which took a couple of weeks, and smiled and wrote back right away.

It must be in the nature of people to reach out with ideas and thought.

Like I always said, writing is the closest thing anyone gets to telepathy.

Love,
Betty

My maternal grandmother, Margaret Lynch, was a flake living in a world of her own and sponging off whoever she could.
My maternal great-grandmother was born about the time of the Battle of the Alamo. She was in school at the beginning of the Civil War but when she turned 13 she began working full-time in a factory as most kids did.
By the time of Custer's Last Stand she had eight or nine children. Julia Burke drove her husband to an early grave because he didn't make enough money, at least in her opinion. When her daughter Margaret married a Lynch she gave her one of everything, one spoon, one pillow and so on because the Lynch's were Shanty Irish and the Burke's were Lace Curtain, again in her opinion.
She was elderly when her grandson was wounded during the First World War. She was a typical Irish Mammy, a true matriarch, when I met her when I was three and again when I was four. A formidable woman who tolerated my presence, but just barely.
She was a very old woman when I was in World War II. She finally cashed in her chips in 1947 without having really accomplished a thing other than staying alive up to that point.

Dick, you just confirmed the reason I am feeling blessed to be a gramma in 2009!

She died before I was born, but her children all said my great-grandmother, Euna Hughes, was as mean-spirited as they come. She had two granddaughters, my grandmother, Berta, and my great aunt, Edna. She spoiled Edna and neglected my grandmother. She doted on Edna's daughter, Lessie, and made my mother's life miserable. I wouldn't be surprised if all the mother/daughter troubles that run through this family didn't begin with her. Yet, her mother, Ailcy's daughter Martha Ann, who was born into the Missouri Borders wars, survived a childhood which included the loss of most of her siblings and her mother during the Civil War, is remembered as one of the most loving and gentle women known to the family.

Check out my blog, "How Much is a Mess?" at the bottom of the page linked below:

http://www.annjoiner.com/myblog.htm

Ann, I love the title. It is a mess. Families are messes and if we care, as you do, we organize them and sort them out and find meaning and why we became who we became.

I love this stuff.

I do not know exactly how to write my next great-grandmother book. It is begun with an experience a few years ago. Perhaps writing it backwards to show the meaning for today. Not an easy task but an interesting challenge.

Carol

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Circumstances selected my friends. Chance selected those related tenuously by blood. I prefer the company of friends.

Some of my family are friends, and other friends have become my family. When it comes to invitations, I consider only those who fit both categories. If a family member is not a friend, they are excluded. Selfish of me, right? I learned long ago that I am responsible only for those that I allow to touch my life.

Ann,

I will choose you.

And I choose you, Alice. Welcome back!

\Ann

My husband goes to many, many reunions. We're at one now, his Ripon college graduation 50 year reunion. Mine is next year. Some dear friends are here and we were together for six hours last evening.

A couple of years ago, my husband went to the reunion of his winning college football team. The coach got up and said, "I have friends and then I have best friends and you are my best friends." He neither emailsn or sees all these men frequently, but they mean the world to him.

My friends at this reunion are best friends. I've also tried to talk to some of their husbands and wives who know no one but their spouses, because with all the reunions I go to with my husband, I know what that is like. I talked to a woman last night I had never met before who knows the woman who lives across the street from me.

You are best friends to me. I speak to you every day. Many of the others I speak with via email or phone or in person seldom.

Carol

Carol, I didn't want my response to your question to alter the tone of Dick's special day thread, so I'm moving it here.

The thing is, my brother filters everything I say or do through the eyes of his own perceptions. Those perceptions are still based on old family roles and patterns. He doesn't want to change them, because he would have to give up being "the good guy." I have known for some time now that I am not, and never should have been identified as "the problem child." It puts us at an impasse. We just do not understand each other.

He is coming here today because his son wants him to come. I want the chance to say "fare forward" to his son, so we will play nice and the day will end without open confrontations.

I will give my nephew a copy of the section of T. S. Eliot's poem, Four Quartets, that deals with Krishna's words to Arjuna: "Not farewell, but fare forward, voyagers." He will understand. That is enough.

Ann

I understand.

My brother considered me the favored child and that got in the way of our relationship. I never could get through to him that my successes didn't come from being favored which I never felt, but from hard work. He let his perceptions keep him back, that he never could do what I had as it was only because it was dropped in my lap, which it wasn't. Those feelings get in the way in my relationships with others as you might have noticed here.

We can only do what we can, what the other person will be open to, what we are open to.

Have a good day with a family person. Your nephew sounds like a good person. My niece completely understood my brother and me. She has worked hard, has three children and works as an audiologist and a beautiful house. My mother said I was her idol. She knew how hard I worked. My brother never did.

Carol

Carol,

I work hard, too. I am very satisfied with what I have and what I have accomplished over the years. He refuses to see that, and focuses on what he thinks are my failures.

You have seen your life as successful. He feels that he never quite measured up to the family image. My mother once told him that if he chose a career as a commercial pilot he would be living his life as a glorified bus driver. Considering Tom's career, you can probably guess how he felt, and where his attitude comes from.

Ann

Ann,

There are people who have said that regarding Tom over the years.

Carol

We are being honest here right?


My family was pretty messed up--I miss them all.
They were totally uncivilized in every way shape and form.

My folks used to come dragging hideous food to eat in the door behind them as though they'd die if they missed one meal without their noxious concoctions.

My step mother-in-law did the same and would loudly proclaim that either I was crazy because the house was too clean or else that she would teach me how to keep house, if she spotted a bit of dust.

One day she grabbed a can of Lysol spray and took the finish off the top of my piano in her zeal to show me how to clean.

She would preach about how terrible women were who wore pants and complain about everything.

The only relative left able to visit is my brother. He will not come near me. He used to be a
hoot.

If I could have my ruthers, I have them all come over, it would be fun

Just enjoy them, Ann