Choosing who you want in your family

Kate and I had a pleasant time at our sister-in-law’s birthday last night. I met M in the 1970s when she was 15 at Massey University. She was extremely smart and confident and had finished all her high school work, plus some uni papers at Victoria but couldn’t enrol there full time. Their loss, Massey’s gain.

She got into a romantic relationship with my younger brother, which lasted long enough to move to Wellington and create a child and she has been part of our family ever since. Family is important to her because hers is unusual and complicated (a couple of right bastards in there who corrupted many relationships and probably a few people) and she prefers to choose who she gets close to. So when she introduced me as her ‘brother’ and Kate as her ‘chosen sister’ to a room of people she admires and has been friends with for a long time, it was genuine, meaningful and heartfelt.

We have been spending more time together in recent months, and from the well wishing comments I got from a couple of her friends, she has told them about my likely coming demise. I’m glad. We are close and she will need friends outside our immediate family circle, who will also be grieving when I die. I’m sure they will be a big help.

Quite by coincidence, I had written almost exactly the same sentences and sentiments about becoming family in the card we included with a gift. I was very happy to confirm we felt the same.