In Family We Trust

Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is a favorite book of mine. This is a simple story of a boy who realizes his need for family and belonging. Around here family is religion.  Family is the underlying meaning for everything we do.  The last 24 hours, like the 'wild rumpus', started me thinking. 
The weekend started with a wedding shower in the church basement. It is a church/community event celebrating and laying claim to the newly weds and the continuing of family traditions. There is a bridal party, head table, devotional, comic relief and choir.  I watch ladies dance around in hairnets before serving us a brunch.  I am entertained, but feel oddly out of place.  I sit with my mother-in-law, because I am not related to the bride, neither do I fit into any of the other family units.  No men are invited, my sons are away at college and my family lives mainly overseas. 

Home barely long enough to wrap a present, I set out for a birthday party I am slightly more excited to attend.  It is a first birthday for my niece's first son, and my sister-in-law's first grandson. I am anticipating a relaxed affair with good food and a darling baby boy.  I am more comfortable here because this is my family and I have every right to be proud of this new life.  To make the party more worthy of a one-year-old, several friends with young children have been invited.  And each child is so loved, honored and idolized.  I remember the words of the devotional earlier, a mother's heartfelt message of wanting only to be a mother, and now a grandmother, and how in achieving this dream she is blessed.  Now I am a mother of three, but they are not present, nor married, nor interested in providing me with grandchildren.  I'm fine with that, ... until I see the obvious difference between me and other families as a deficiency. 

Families that grow old together, multiply and gather to celebrate,  are what makes this small farming community thrive.  We do our best to keep our children nearby and sit together in church.  On Sunday the birthday boy keeps us entertained all the way through the sermon, which likened a new birth to a piece of heaven on earth. We then trooped down into the basement once again to honor the high school seniors. I must point out that few of them actually attend church, but they come from church families who are doing their bit to keep the young from scattering.  Many will stay to work on the family farm or at least come back to have their newborns baptized.   The notice board in the church entry proudly displays all the babies and their families. 
This is just the start of the season of celebrations.  Families will entertain at their homes and everyone will attend.  You hear, "He's a good boy.  He comes from a good family." These people live together, do business together and fight to make a viable living in rural small town America.  More than anything they honor those who have not left, moved on, or turned their back on their family roots.

I do not see myself following this 'religion'.  My sons will not settle down in a small town or buy a house near mine.  I will never teach in the local school or be a Sunday school teacher again. My part in this community is tenuous at best, because I have no children or grandchildren here. And every day I am reminded in someway that I have roots elsewhere, family across the sea and dreams that go beyond the confines of a family home. But, like Max, after sailing
"... off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year..."  I will end up coming home to Minnesota.