Family as friends

I am so glad that my children are friends. Last night, Dean arrived home with the youngest four from a full day and evening of skiing. As I asked them how the day had gone, they laughed so hard with each other about the crashes and funny stories of the day. They don't just ski together. They play together. I may not be very subjective in my perspective, but I do not see a lot of competition among them. They just enjoy each other. The relationships aren't perfect, but they are there.

Since I  lost a brother recently, I've reflected a lot on the relationships in my family. We don't get to pick the families that we are born into. We choose friends. We usually choose friends that are like us and like to do the things that we do. We don't get that luxury with our siblings. But we can't just walk away when we discover we might not pick them to be our friends. Because they are our family. I shared experiences with my brothers growing up that I did not and never will share again with anyone else - vacations, playing in the dirt with Matchbox cars, spit tortures, unsupervised afternoons. Those experiences create the ties that keep us together. I guess the challenge is to do our part to maintain those sometimes fragile ties as our lives move apart. Because in the end, I won't be eternally linked to the friends that I chose in this life, but I will be to the family I was born into.