Family

On Sunday, I had a long conversation with my father, as I stood on a spit of sand overlooking the Bay, watching my dog run around like a nut on the trail of phantom ground squirrels. Peter and I have been talking about our families, and growing up, and models for adulthood and relationships, and I worried that I'd been mythologizing my dad. I've had this impression of him as this strong do-right guy who would do anything for his family, and so I decided to go straight to the source to see if I'd been talking him up too much.

"Your mom and I were so young," he told me. "We tried to do the best we could, but sometimes I think of things I said to you kids that I wish I hadn't, but we both love you so much."

As it turns out, I haven't been mythologizing him. That became obvious as we stayed on the phone for at least an hour, talking about everything from fidelity to raising healthy children to plans for Ian's wedding. He is a good man, and I am lucky to have him as my father, just as I am lucky to have my mother as well.

I was thinking about spending Easter at Alisal with Peter's family, and how I ached for my own family so badly that I nearly derailed Saturday night's dinner. My parents did so much with so little. They were some kind of Northwoods superheroes to get us through our childhood when they could barely pay the $100 rent on our falling-down Victorian when I was six.

But it has become equally clear to me that, no matter how much I may envy Peter for his family's proximity, I am equally blessed to have them in my life. They have accepted me--loved me?--as their son's/brother's/friend's chosen partner, and I can't even begin to explain how good that feels. They really see me, and they like me. I think everyone, no matter how old we get, yearns for that type of acceptance.

Plans for the summer have shifted slightly, and it now seems as if we may spend more weekends than expected up in Seattle, or at Whidbey, and I welcome this influx of family time. I am so lucky to have these other people, who have come into my life as unexpectedly and wonderfully as Peter has, who I can, at least a little bit now, begin to call my own. I look forward to talking with Moni about her pregnancy, to listening to Linda play piano, to having more time to begin to understand these people who seem to be claiming me as their own.

Yeah, I'm pretty damn lucky.