Functional family

Saturday night, a dozen friends and family come together to celebrate a birthday. One young woman, radiantly four months pregnant with her first baby, is slicing avocados in the kitchen when her sister-in-law arrives and greets her with a tender hug around the shoulders. Recent paintings and photographs decorate the kitchen cabinets; family pictures bedeck the fridge. I’m standing nearby with my camera turned on.

Functional family: a family guided by regard and respect for each person, oriented to the highest and best possibility for every member of that family, accepting each person as they are and celebrating the differences among them. What a joy to the world that is, and how rare.

P.S. I see that last year I had just been to see a production of Lear with my friends Bob and Jeremy. Shakespeare knew family dysfunction well, long before that term was coined to describe it.