When does an egg start to crack? Most times, it’s because new life is about to immerge. Other times its because it’s been damaged. I’m not sure about families. I remember reading “The Mulvaneys” years ago. It’s about a family that everyone thought was perfect-but it was just a shell. It had a tiny, tiny crack that was barely discernable behind its perfect white exterior. But once it started to crack there was no stopping it.
There are discernible cracks in most families. But from some new life emerges. In others the crack just keeps deepening. Is it a person? Is it circumstances? Is it trauma? Could it even be that there has only ever been just an illusion of closeness?
Is it our own individual cracks that hasten our families’ disintegration. Do the more people that join our family network with their own “cracks” hasten the demise? Can a family survive and come away stronger on crack is no longer unavoidable?
I guess one would have to ask the families involved? One thing seems to be universal. Families, as individuals, have to work at it. I think that means staying in contact and connected with each other’s lives. But that also means overlooking old wounds and hurts. It means giving each other the benefit of a doubt. That’s so much easier to suggest than it is to do. It’s not easy to overlook the hurts. But the families that survive do.
Wait a minute! Do I even know a healthy family unit when I see one? Does anyone? What is it anyway? What does it look like to you? What does it look like to me?
