The Most Fragile Thing In The World

July 8, 2014

Frag-ile [fraj–uhl; British fraj-ahyl]
adjective
easily broken, shattered, or damaged; delicate; brittle; frail.

I have learned what the most fragile thing in the world is. And it’s not an object.

Family is the most fragile thing in our world.

We assume that a family is what it is. Either because it exists outside of our choice, you can’t choose who you are born to or with. Or because we have made a decision, a vow, to create a new family and keep it that way forever.

Neither of these are written in stone. Yet we don’t treat family with kid gloves. We don’t realize that once it’s broken it will take an amazing amount of work to fix it, if ever.

Whether it’s losing a dad far too young, or a parent leaving a marriage/family, or siblings choosing to end their relationship. All of these can break a family into a million pieces. Sometimes they are possible to repair but always forever changed.

We don’t take our familial relationships nearly as seriously as we should. We don’t live with the realization that the family we are born into and the family we create is a gift. An amazing living structure that needs our attention, care and love.

There are plenty of phrases thrown around about “living like today is your last day on earth”, not often enough are we reminded to live our lives as if it’s the last day our families will be whole. What would you do if you knew tomorrow your family would face hardship? Or a tragedy? That’s how we should love. That’s how we should parent.

That doesn’t mean I need to become an anxious mom that assumes something awful could happen any second.  Or become a party mom and throw rules and punishments out the window. I still want to raise my boys to be polite, sympathetic, stable men. But I also want them to know how very much I cherish them. They are the best gifts I’ve ever been given, and the only gifts that ever came with this much responsibility. And I will love them and raise them as the treasures they are. I will be aware that they are fragile. That this life is fragile.

The same goes for my family. We can’t take our parents, siblings or relatives for granted. We aren’t an immovable boulder that will remain as stable and constant as we assume it should. I don’t want to leave anything unsaid. I want my family to know how much I appreciate and love them. Everything can change in an instant, why do we keep our love for one another to ourselves? Why do we tell ourselves “well, they know how I feel”?

Luckily I believe humans are amazingly resilient. Hardships and tragedies are not a death sentence to the families involved. It’s a hurdle. It’s a road block that will probably take more work than we think we can handle to get back on track. And when you get back to traveling on the new road that is your life, it will look different. It might have more potholes, or steeper hills than you had imagined for yourself, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable.

I will fuck up all of these wonderful epiphanies daily (if not hourly) but I will remind myself daily (if not hourly) who and what is important (hint: it’s not me first). I will treat my family and the day ahead of me with happiness and love and that is exactly what will come back to me.