Families are the people you're supposed to be with: every day, to eat turkey once a year, or at least when you die - or after you die and they all gather to be solemn and hope there's something in the will.
Families are the people who give us either our messed up DNA & (purportedly) messed up attitudes; or else our brilliance and peachy photogenicity.
We are who we are either because of or in spite of them - (hopefully both, or whichever is better)
Families are our most intimate and tender, our most searingly painful, our first and last - interactions with the world - and a whole lotta in between.
Families are people we would never have chosen in a million years, or people we chose and then repented; or "cashmere sweater types" who feel wonderful up close and never itch; or those who - like cold sheets - we've warmed up to.. They're either our faithful tribe, or else our best/(least unacceptable) selection/serendipity. Hopefully, at least a work in progress that doesn't deserve the delete button. yet
Anyway, it's the same group of people all the time. Unless we change it - or us. (In which case it might be a whole new group of people around the table next Thanksgiving, all in the same bodies as this year, but new and improved - because we see them with different eyes. )
Families are/can be forever, we either hope or un-hope. (what's the opposite of hope?) Or disbelieve. Or, in my case, believe.
Family is who you feel guilty for not liking. Or else justified.
Family can embarrass us, or else be somebody(ies) to proudly hitch our Instagram to.
Family can be either hicks / hillbillies, or else royalty. Either common worker bees - like so many in the hive; or else drones (meaning sluggards and leeches). (Though that word fails the bee analogy here, because big fat drones - being the only viable males - are actually crucial to the colony. Even if they're otherwise useless and even have to be fed. Anyhew, it DOES occasionally seem to describe certain XY's to a T.)
Family can be: stupid as a bag of rocks (pardon the perfect cliche), or else smart - like us. Self-centered, or else altruistic - like us sort of. Boring as fine print, interesting/entertaining, or occasionally even profound. (the pro we've found)
Pro-trumpers, TRUMP the Trumpers, or else "why can't we all just sing kumbaya together"-ers. In unison and perfect harmony. (which means blocking out the unbelievers - or the dung-believers.)
Family members are either salt of the earth, or environmental toxins- or else inert compost. (I've got a pretty salty - and peppery- bunch. All of whom are destined for compost - temporarily.)
Family are the people we ignore and take for granted - and who return the favor - until there's an emergency. Then they rally, and hug, and hold up their end of that tight kindred tent as the cold cruel world rains down. And we better as heck return that favor.
This Thanksgiving, I am preeminently grateful for: the Son of Man - whose sublime teachings are still the solution to all our world's Family squabbles... to all those in the Family of Man who came before and prepared so much, which we are honor bound to pass on... and to my family of origin, especially smart pioneer parents, who never lost (or stopped attempting) their far away horizons. I'm thankful also for a dynamic husband (thought long and hard to distill that adjective); 6 crackerjack kids ( 5 married), and 13 bang-up grandies (so far). dynamic. crackerjack. bang-up. do we see a theme here ... And I am thank-full for the liberty to write this.