Everyone that knows me knows how close I am to my family. My mommy is my rock and I helped raise my baby sister. My older brother is my best friend and my two little brothers are the buffers I need sometimes for the things I get into. I sometimes find it hard to understand when families don't get along. My grandmother used to tell us that the only thing we have is each other... our family. So I started thinking about the values that were instilled in me. The most important one to me is that no matter what, you stay close to your family whether you like the family member or not.
My classmates had very strong opinions about the situation with Tracy Morgan and his mother and Madonna's situation with her brother. Some think that he should have given his mother money for her home because when it's all said and done she's his only mother. Others voiced that his mother wasn't acting like a good mother when she put their family business in the media. Some of the opinions that I got about Madonna is that, with the money she has, her brother shouldn't be homeless. Others even voiced that he should be able to get the best rehab. For the record, I think Madonna did offer her brother rehab, but you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
I don't think any of us can honestly say that we had a Leave It to Beaver life. My father died when I was a toddler and my mom and stepfather both worked very hard to provide for us and I have some really great memories of my childhood. But I remember that I wanted to have more of a relationship with my Mommy. I wanted to be able to do more with her. (After all we were surrounded by testosterone.) We have a great relationship now that she has retired and I'm an adult. We can have a lunch or sit down to a dinner because she's not on a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. I can call her in the middle of the day just because and she's not so busy at work that she can't talk.
Maybe we expect too much out of our family members. No one is perfect and we all have the drunk uncle that's always asking for two dollars or the drug addict cousin twice removed that no one really talks about even though we try constantly to get to and keep them in rehab. Then we have the family member that everyone has given up on. No matter who you are, no matter how poor or rich you are, and definitely no matter how famous or successful you are, you have to deal with family (depending on how successful you are, you have to deal with more of your family than others). We don't have to be in their lives constantly or allow them over for tea and cucumber sandwiches, but they do affect our lives in some manner.
The lesson I learned from my grandmother is that you encourage your family member who may not have aspired to be where you are or to the heights that you're climbing to. You can't put them down and hope that 'tough love' or ignoring the person will make them become a better person. If you have that drunk uncle, don't just tell him to go to an AA meeting... accompany him to the meetings. If you have an addict cousin, go with them to decide on a comfortable rehab for them. If you have a family member that's incarcerated, don't give up on them...go visit them on the weekends, send them money to get what their food, hygene or stationary items, and write them so that they do not feel as if one bad decision will determine their family value.
I'm guilty of the tough love approach but it did not make the situation better and it definitely did not improve our relationship. So it's hard to put up with family and their issues when you have so many of your own, but in the long run, if you saved their spirit or their life, isn't it worth it?
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