What "Family" Really Is

It has become very apparent to me lately that the term “family” refers to the people in your life that nurture you, and guide you, and love you. This often has nothing to do with the people who created you biologically, and anyone who may be related to them.

My dad was an alcoholic and died when I was nine. My mom raised my sister and I by herself. We always knew she cared for us and she always did her best for us, but she was not a huggy kissy kind of person. We were never really “close.” She was always cold and aloof and rarely praised us. Even when we had good grades and stuff it was always, “Well, you could be doing better.”

Because she was always working, my sister and I were “latch key kids.” This meant that we really had minimal supervision. Where I generally took that as a challenge to try to “do the right thing,” my sister looked at it as free-range to do as she pleased. We both abused it at times but no one’s perfect.

My sister was always very selfish and everything was always what she wanted, and she wanted everything. She was angry when I was born because I cut into her having her way and she has treated me badly my whole life. She teased me, denigrated me, and generally bullied me until I was in high school and finally got the nerve to tell her off. I’ve refused to let her bully me since.

For many years, my mother lived with my sister. This was, in my opinion, primarily because my sister used my mother to bail her out of all of her financial crises. My mom always complained to me about how my sister had to borrow money, or how she had to help her pay for something. But for many years we all hardly talked to each other except on holidays or if there was some “important” news about a relative, like someone died. I never considered this a bad thing because if there was one thing my mom taught me, it was to be independent. We always had an understanding between us that “no news was good news” so we never felt compelled to talk “just to chat.”

My mom eventually moved out and got her own apartment where she lived on her own for a long time. A few years ago, she began having weird spells and memory problems and she was diagnosed with dementia. This has progressed and she is now diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. For a couple of years, meds kept her fairly stable and she could still live on her own with my sister keeping close tabs on her. My sister did this because she lived very close to her and worked from her house. I worked business hours in an office 35 miles away and we both agreed it was better if she did the day-to-day stuff. But she is no longer able to care for herself and is now in a nursing home.

I was handling her finances for a while, but, I could get no accountability from my sister and I didn’t like a lot of the things I was seeing in the checkbook. The more I asked for accountability the angrier and more abusive she became. Until she finally stopped taking any calls and blocked my emails. Imagine, I’m legally responsible for money she’s spending and she won’t tell me where it’s going. That was the last straw. Since I was legally responsible for the government money, and because I could get no decent accountability from my sister, I had to protect myself and my family by divorcing myself from my mother’s finances.

My sister has spent the last year telling everyone on our side of the family that I have “abandoned” my mother. I “never” visit her and “never” call her. She takes great pride in telling me how the rest of our family now hates me as thoughtless and evil. In the meantime, no one from our family has made any attempt to contact me for anything. Not to find out my side of the story, or even to see how things were going for me. Most of them haven’t sent me even a token Christmas card in years, and stopped inviting me to any family outings well over a decade ago. My niece is a chip off the old block. Harassing everyone in my family and attacking them at every turn.

This is supposed to be my “family?”

I have been visiting and calling my mother, and she once commented that I was not really a member of our family anymore. I seemed to be a member of my wife’s family. This is because when we talked I always talked about my wife’s family, her sisters and husbands, and their kids.

She was right.

I am a member of my wife’s family. I became that when I married her and they treat me like a “family” should. They are close and keep in contact. We are always invited to different homes around holidays and everyone sends cards and letters. We constantly call and email and when my mother first started having problems, many people on my wife’s side of the family called to ask how I was, how my mom was, and if there was anything they could do to help. It’s not all perfect, but at least people care and show it.

All I did was marry into this family and they have taken me in as one of their own. Just like in high school when my friend Joe’s family took me in and cared for me like I was one of their kids. I was just invited over around Christmas and spent time with them. These are the people I learned loving, caring, respect, and how to treat family from. Not my biological household. These are the people who are my family, not those whose DNA I share. I would be proud, at any time, to tell people I was a member of those families. I do not have the same warm feelings for my biologics.

So I watch with great sadness as my mother goes through this, and I will continue to see her and talk to her as long as she can remember who I am. We actually have nice conversations and she seems pleased to see me. My biological relations can think of me by whatever slander my sister feeds them. I’d sue her but she’s not worth it. It is their shortcoming and problem, not mine. I will continue to spend most of my time with my “family.” The ones who really care and the ones who really matter.

I really don’t think I care anymore what my biological relatives do.

They are simply not my “family.”