The Value of Chosen Family

It's late, but I wanted to take a minute to say just how wonderful and thoroughly enriching it is to have someone you love, and whom you gladly count among your chosen family, bless you with their presence.

Auntie Fran is in the area on vacation for only a few days, but she made a point of setting aside this entire evening for Wayfarer House. She arrived just before evening meal and stayed until well past 11pm; every moment was like being wrapped in a warm, soft, goodsmelly* blanket. She is such a heartwarming person, and I cannot help be feel a little unworthy of such love and friendship as she offers without reservation. It serves to remind me of just how important it is to offer the same to her, and also to everyone else.

Do you have someone like Fran in your world, a member of your chosen (or blood) family who brings peace and love every time they visit^? Someone who can be gone from your world for a long time but, when they come back, it is like they've never really been far away? Please take this opportunity to share these people here, or on your own blogs. Just give them some love!

* "Goodsmelly" is a word in the Wayfarer House dictionary. It comes from one of my students several years ago, and is a great word to use when you don't want to communicate a particular kind of pleasing smell, and you want the gestalt of the adjective to focus on the person, not the object. Curious, isn't it, that there is no word in English that does this already?

^ The use of the 3rd person plural as a genderless singular pronoun is something that undoubtedly will offend purists of English grammar. I will defend its usage because there is simply no other convenient option in English that accomplishes the same thing. It is no longer politically correct to use the masculine to indicate both genders, and the use of both pronouns reads awkwardly, no matter what form it takes. The use of "they" to indicate "he and/or she" has crept into colloquial use because it makes sense. It is the only third person pronoun that includes both genders simultaneously. I accept it on that basis as an appropriate adaptation of the language to the needs of the particular society that uses it.