What is family?

  Nobody probably cares about what I think on all these things that I'm writing about but I just love doing it. Spewing out words on my keyboard and getting it down is something I've found brings me so much peace although that may be a strange way to put it. Anyway, on to what I want to talk about this time.

  A few years ago when my parents last visited me in the US my mother told me something about my grandfather that I had not known and that my grandmother had not wanted people to know for a long time. I found out he was not actually my blood relative grandfather but in reality my step-grandfather. He died way back in 1981/82, I forget the exact year since I was still young but I still do have vivid memories of my time with him.

  I should explain a few things about my grandfather that made this bit of news understandable to me if not a little surprising. I'm English and all my other relatives are English, we are English through and through. My grandfather (since to me that is what is will always be) was German, he was a POW during WW2 and was held in England and worked them farms. After the war he stayed doing that since that was the only way to stay in England and he did not want to return to Germany given the state that country was in after the war. A couple of years later he meets my grandmother who I know now had already had my mother and was raising her on her own. You can image what a strong woman my grandmother is (the only grandparent I have left still alive), raising a child on her own born out of wedlock and marrying a German man in the late 1940s right after WW2.

  You now see why I wasn't completely surprised by the news that he wasn't my actual blood line grandfather. My grandmother never really wanted people to know the truth about this, the only people who knew are my parents, my mothers sister and my fathers parents since she told them when my parents got married. The truth makes just as much sense as the "lie" that people led me to believe via an omission of details. The only reason I know the truth know is that my grandmother is senile, my parents are in their 60s and they were worried if anything happened I would find out the truth via finding my mothers birth certificate and wondering why she had a different maiden name from the one I always thought she had. I loved my grandfathers name, Kurt Kintzel, it always seemed so cool to me. I was proud to have some German heritage in me even though it wasn't true. I don't think any of that has changed, he had a big impact on me directly and indirectly via my mother.

  The point of all this is that I've thought of family for a long time now as more than just the people I'm directly blood related to. The most obvious of these is the person who is most important to me, my wife. I've felt closer to other people in my life than some of my direct cousins and aunts/uncles. You may be born in to a family but your "family" you end up having and actually enjoying ends up being a far more diverse group of people. Admittedly in my case that group of people is very small, I find I want to have a real connection to very few people and the ones that feel the same about me makes it even smaller. However I treasure those connections more than anything else, I would do anything for those people and I never want to lose those people from my life.

  As an addendum to all this waffling on I though I would share some strange coincidences about when my grandparents have died. As I mentioned before my grandfather died way back in the early 80s, the day before my brothers birthday. My other grandfather then died back in 1991, the day before my mothers birthday. I then met my wife a few days after that and found out a little bit later her birthday is the same day as my mothers. I have no excuse for forgetting that day, mother and wife having the same birthday. Then finally my grandmother on my fathers side died the day before my wife and I were to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. It just seems strange to me how all those dates lined up like that. My remaining grandmother is 89 this year I believe so I don't think it will be long before we lose her but I can't help but wonder slightly what day she will pick.