As I have written about many times, my friends are my family. I have never spoken of it here but I have a brother eight years older than me and a father who both live about five miles from me. The how’s and why’s are a long, long story but they don’t have a relationship with each other nor with me. Since I was very young it was always my mom and I and when she died five years ago, I lost the last of my blood connection. There are no grandparents, aunts or uncles, no cousins and my husband and I have no children.
So I know no one like me, neither in the scope of DNA nor in the fact that all of my closest friends have offspring, parents and extended family. I doubt that my friends have ever thought about it, nor did I until the last year or so. We never wanted to have kids and have never regretted the decision. Even with this newfound realization, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Bloodlines, of course, are no guarantee. Families break down, split, become estranged. But it is sad to become aware that you are not biologically attached to anyone in your life. I have a loving husband, his family, our feathered little guy and sisters of my heart who mean more to me than the brother I am not in contact with ever could. But when my mom took her last breath, I lost my grounding force in so many emotional ways and also in my genetics.
I see the disparity of lamenting the end of my blood ties when a biological parent and sibling are so geographically near. But those links died long before my mom did and those passings were so much more final than my mom’s soul leaving her body. My real family will not appear on my ancestory.com tree but they show up everywhere else. Blood may be science but it is no substitute for love.
