Interconnectedness

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationship of blood versus choice. How do we get “assigned” to the family we have? There are many different schools of thought on how this happens, but one indisputable fact is that the people you grow up with will have an indelible impact on your thoughts, beliefs, values and emotions.

Most call it “conditioning” and whether it’s intentional or not, each unique person will store those repeated actions, lessons, behaviors and interpret them in the only way she knows how. And because we operate in relation with one another in our family unit, we are bound to be affected by the actions and choices the other family members make. 

Last year ended with an unexpected trip to San Diego for a family funeral for one of my favorite uncles. In the eulogy, Uncle Nabieh’s grandson said “How lucky we all were to have had the chance to know him and love him.”  That made me think of how we impact others and how three generations of family show up for a 92 year old man to celebrate him. Clearly Nabieh’s impact was salient and it was so because his motivation was love for his family. Obviously, we all show love in different ways, but his was the joyful, playful, supportive kind that came with no  strings attached.  He clapped and sang when he entered the room he was always that genuinely happy to see his family. And it was reciprocated in so many different ways too. Another one of his grandsons took him to the casino weekly to fuel his slot machine fetish and admitted it was his favorite one-on-one time he got to spend with his grandfather that he will remember forever. It was a beautiful display of love and family - and I was so happy to not just be a witness, but to have felt even a bit of his special brand of joyful love.