Families Happen

 Like everyone else, mostly, I have this vast family connected to me by DNA. Of course, I love and treasure them, and connect with them over thousands of miles whenever we can. We visit back and forth and it is so important to me to be in contact with all my eight grandchildren.

Because we live so far from most of our family we have our "family" here as well. Here is Maria, the sister I adopted many years ago in Italy. She is wearing the robe I gave her for her trip up north where it will be cold.

 We both needed a sister (I already had one, she had none). You can't have too many sisters! In case you're thinking this beautiful woman is some kind of desperate orphan - NOT! She's a famous and published anthropologist, and we happened to do the adoption in Italy because we were both there having an amazing holiday and it seemed the right thing to do.

In this photo she's wearing the new robe I gave her for the family Hannuka celebration last week. In our mutual adoption, I got a new brother-in-law, my grandson got a wonderful uncle, all of us got new family we treasure.

This weekend another part of our "family" is here. This is a family of four- Peter, Anne. Stephan and Phil. This family has been visiting our ranch for years and we have watched their two boys grow up. Together we have explored the woods and swamps and fields. We have shared so many meals, talks and walks and heavy work cutting downed trees and mowing the fields. More than any 'real' relation, this family truly gets it why we love this place.

We are hoping that they will be able to buy some of the acreage next to ours.. So much to think about that.

Their boys do not have any living grandparents, and I think they may regard us as some kind of surrogate. This family is our family forever.

And, so important under my heart as an outlier part of my family is Warren, the cowboy we inherited when we bought this land more than twenty years ago. Warren owns and takes care of the cattle on our place. He is a suspicious guy who takes his time figuring out anyone. But, now, he and I are thick as thieves, we hug a lot, have conversations about cows and vegetables and the weather. He is so different from me politically, but I know he is not ever mean spirited (the deer he kills is butchered and sent to the local food banks) Warren would do anything for me and I would do the same for him. He's family to me.

Last Friday as the massacre was happening in Newtown, I was in a public school first grade making latkes with the kids.

Terrible week, thinking about this. What I do know is that the IRA is totally on the wrong track!

Families happen in the most serendipitous ways. My little family of those first graders grating the potatoes and onions, asking questions, trusting.

Family happens!