"These are you finger bones, together," his nephew informed us. "You have bones in your arms and your fingers. Let's touch them."He's two and very smart. We had a nice night of extended family stuff: lots of food, talk, and a cute kid. He held both our hands while telling us about our finger bones.
It made me think about family, and sharing your family with someone in a marriage, especially sharing such a complicated family as his. He has made himself very vulnerable by inviting me to be a part of his life in this way. Families are lovely things...even crazy families with addicts popping out of the woodwork.
There's such bindings in families, though, especially in the blendings that emerge from a marriage. Not only are you family with your partner, you're now also family with his or her parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews. It's quite a weight.
There's a hole in my heart shaped like some relatives of past lovers, people who became family and were lost in the separations. It's hard to think about. I'm going to stop thinking about it now.
