We do chose our family...if we're lucky

I got married for the first time 25 years ago today. I was just 24 years old. Man, if I knew then what I know now...but I guess if I had known then what I now know, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And by and large, that would be a shame.

That marriage lasted just under ten years, not counting the few months I spent in California, ostensibly to spend time with my sister and newborn nephew but in actuality to escape, regroup and recharge. I returned to my wife, who was a good woman, and we tried for a little longer but it wasn’t to be.

That relationship produced a daughter, Amelia, who’s almost 21. As regular “What’s the Diehl?” readers know, I don’t talk with Amelia or her mom anymore. Nor am I in touch with my sister, my nephew, or most of the people who made up my family a quarter century ago.

I’m not happy about this but the older I get, the more accepting I am of what used to be unacceptable.

I now know that love isn’t dependent on deoxyribonucleic acid. Some of the people who are closest to me now don’t share my blood or genes. I feel bonded to my stepdad – one of the greatest men ever to walk the face of the earth, bar none – yet we don’t share a single allele. Anita’s children are now mine regardless of what a laboratory analysis or their natural father would claim.

And just because my sibling and offspring have some of the same blood pumping through their veins doesn’t mean we’re connected or have anything in common.

This is why it’s so infuriating when others want to define “family” for everybody. Most of the people with whom I share love and joy and sadness and life aren’t related to me. It’s about connection, not heredity or tradition. It’s about shared goals and strengths and weaknesses, compatibility and desire and ability to compromise, empathize and communicate. If two men or two women are drawn to each other and want to legalize their commitment, it should be celebrated, not condemned. If folks have decided that skin color or ethnicity don’t matter to them and they want to share life as family, why should it even matter to outsiders?

I agree that “family” is important. But to me, “family” doesn’t mean my mother’s sister’s spawn in South Dakota or the man who impregnated my mother a half century ago and treated her poorly from then on. “Family” means those whom we care about and who care about us, whom we want to help and who want to help us, who want to know what we’re thinking and doing and what we like and don’t like.

I sure like it when people live and let live.