A Day for Family

Today is December 15th.
Last year, I wrote about Bernice. How we found each other and how, on this date years later, I lost her. I remember Bernice always, but today I'm putting some flowers out by the flag that the navy sent me when she died, looking at old pictures, and drinking a chocolate milk (her favorite). Part of my ongoing promise never to let her memory fade out.
The holidays are coming up. Remembering Bernice reminds me to think about people who don't have families to visit them with cookies and presents. It reminds me to be so, so appreciative of my own family and how lucky we are to have each other, however imperfect we each may be. And it especially reminds me of one of the best lessons I learned from her, which is that "family" means much more than similar DNA.
If we are lucky, we're born to a family and we get to keep them. But as we go, we also get to choose the people that we love and that we weave into our lives until they are part of us. As we go, we find people we decide to belong to. One of the best things about being a person, I think, is something that Bernice taught me, and Little One continues to teach me every day.
We don't have to be alone. We don't have to be born into perfect families, we don't have to be involved in a Great Romance. We can choose to seek each other out, even in the most unlikely places, even across oceans, even across stereotypes, even through fear, and we can choose- like children do- to love.
When I die, the flag will probably be given away, the pictures maybe thrown out, along with so many other objects, precious to me and meaningless to others. That's ok. They're really just little loops of string around my fingers, little reminders of memories, and ideas, and family. One day when Little One sifts through my things, dispersing and dispensing of them, She might not realize it but the best things I can leave Her are things I inherited from others myself, including Bernice. Including from Her. Things that can't be thrown away. Like how to choose to be a part of a family-shared DNA, or not. Like how to choose to love.