Family

family: [treated as singular or plural] a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household; a group of people related to one another by blood or marriage; the children of a person or couple; a person or people related to one and so to be treated with a special loyalty or intimacy; a group of people united in criminal activity; (Biology) a principal taxonomic category that ranks above genus and below order, usually ending in -idae (in zoology) or -aceae (in botany); a group of objects united by a significant shared characteristic; (Mathematics) a group of curves or surfaces obtained by varying the value of a constant in the equation generating them; all the descendants of a common ancestor;
a race or group of peoples from a common stock; all the languages ultimately derived from a particular early language, regarded as a group;
(adjective) [attributive] designed to be suitable for children as well as adults

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/family
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My mother won't receive a card for Mother's Day. When my mother asked me years ago to stop sending cards both Kim and I had signed, I stopped sending cards. Perhaps I should have stopped sending cards sooner...maybe during those undergrad college years when money allowed only an e-card to be sent and I was asked to send a replacement because there'd been a spelling error in the first, meaning the card could not be printed and displayed on the mantle as a perfect testament to a perfect relationship between a perfect mother and a perfect daughter.  We had so much perfect ooooozing out of us, we turned dryer lint to gold.

Though she will tell YOU otherwise because you must believe in the story of our family she's created (the 'public' portrayal) she will tell me I am a failure as a daughter and as a person (the reality of our private relationship). While that had been clearly communicated before (in some less-than motherly ways), when she told me telling her I was getting married was bad but telling her I had cancer was worse, I understood on a whole other level.  Equating my having cancer to my marriage, somehow scaling them near each other on the bad end of a scale, reinforced what she thought about me. Though words like the cancer vs. marriage comment are hurtful, they are welcomed reminders of my own sanity when the mass-market paperback story varies so widly from the story distributed only within our family of four.

My mother won't receive an email or a phone call on Mother's Day. I've emailed over the last few months off and on in response to her emails, but have not seen or talked on the phone with my mother since her and my father visited after Christmas. 

My father is the oldest of three. In the last two weeks, my mother made sure to ask if I was in contact with my father's two younger sisters (which I'm not) because if I was my elderly great aunt didn't want them to know she wasn't doing well.  It has been years since I've spoken to anyone on that side. I suspect it was a two-sided decision, but over the years isolating our 'four' became more important (necessary?).

My mother is an only child of alcoholic parents. Her mother, while she was miserable to her, loved the night and day out of me. I was my Mom-mom's Gingersnap. All of my grandparents have passed and when I lost Mom-mom in 1989, I lost my weekend escape, my magical, Narnia-like walk through her backyard to the creek, and the love that sustained me long enough for me to make it to sixth grade.

I am one of two. My younger brother (the other half of the human love that sustained me as a child) united with another soul only a few months after Kim and I married. Their blessing ceremony was the last I saw him, chatting only a few times after that event through emails or texts, and even then, only to deal with issues in a moment. 

More and more my family continues to evolve into my FAMILY...

There is of course, Kim and our fuzzy children, Meg (otherwise known as Pookie, a dog with a love of chasing light), Hazel (a cat who is unaware she can jump), Momma (formerly known as Stach, a stray we welcomed into our home and a toe amputee), Piper and Mooie (brother and sister, kittens born in our home to the aforementioned Momma), and the three koi (Frisky, Tiger, and Luna) who live in our pond (a pond, mind you, described in the listing we read before we found our home as a 'private water feature,' stirring up premature images of My Big Fat Greek Wedding-like fountains).

There is a handful of dear friends (Sarah, Liz, Devin, Marlo, Ed, Cheryl, Terri), a grouping of extended friends, some 'traditional' family, a powerhouse trio of mentors who are my greatest supporters (Sue, Dr. Becky, Geri), a collection of the few whose positive words I hold differently over time (Miss Kamenir, Mom-mom, Barbara Hoffman, Ally, my godmother) some even after they've passed.

There is the other, long-standing powerhouse trio of my evolving FAMILY: music, art, and words, best contributing when they all play together under their common last name, IMAGINATION.

And there is the FAMILY created from space--filled by earth, fire, water, and air, filled by nightime and daytime, filled by connection to nurturing roots thankfully reaching much deeper than those on the 'private' family tree.

On this day, celebrate who and what nurtures your beautiful being, who and what embraces, unconditionally, the totality of you. And to those people, places, and things, offer out and up a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!