When A Family Pulls Together

I think I may always have known the strengths of character our friends’ possess but  it was only when they were challenged in the hardest way possible that I understood what that really meant.

I watched a play recently where the playwright had family members gather on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. The play explored their emotional connections to this event and also how their lives had been affected by the ensuing controversies and emotive media coverage.

There was no media coverage of the death of our Friends’ daughter yet the speed with which that particular tragedy had played out, caught all of us who were on the  periphery of unfolding events,  unawares, helpless to do anything which might make a difference to a young life slipping away.

My own reflections at the time and even more so now are:  that each member of that family brought capacities that in any area of life would draw appreciation.  Appreciation for their adroitness, their meticulous attention to detail, their ability to knit the needs of their daughter, sister, niece, into a patchwork of caring and consideration, of emotional strength and encouragement.

This was a family that was alive to each demanding moment of that journey. They pulled all of their individual resources into what became a formidably protective cocoon.  So, even though we on the outside may always have known this was an aggressively terminal illness and the end when it came was too, too sudden, for the family it was a gently quiet end for their loved-one.

In the New York Times the reviewer of “Regular Singing” By Richard Nelson writes about how the cast is connected to its script  “as if it were a bloodline”.

There can be no script for a life event such as that experienced by our friends’ family  but none of us will ever doubt the strength, and  the richness of their bloodline.