Reflection #5: Family

Family for some may mean mother, father, and siblings but for others family are those that had a hand in your upbringing - regardless if they are related by blood, or aren't the immediate family that we think of. Family may also extend outside of the body as we see in some of the poets work this week.

My Grandmother's Grave and Heredities (1) Etymology for example, focus on the grandmother being staples in their lives. Both poems mention moms, "this is why the name of your mother is Maria," "mourning for her daughter who was killed by headaches," but they each focus on the grandmother and you can pick up on the fondness and love that the grandmother's provided them. Family may mean sacrifice as well, as Martinez address that the names of his grandmother's children came out of the spots in her throat that was inflamed. This poems seems to pay homage to all that his grandmother endured for the sake of their family.

In Ashes however, South Central is family and we get the sense that the streets themselves is what raised Ayon, not a particular person but the place itself - stores, graffiti, people on the sidewalks etc. is family. Ayon extends family from just the physical body to physical landmarks in South Central, and the nostalgia once felt living there.

This makes me realize that family can be place, but it can also be a feeling: Comfort, warmth, familiar, shoulder to cry on, people to laugh with, people to love, memories, future plans and distant pasts. Carbo does a great example of this in Directions to my Childhood. The directions to his home aren't just turn left, turn right. They are physical logistics but written in a voice that feels comforting, like I'm supposed to connect a memory to every street corner that is made. If Bubba's Taxi Could Talk, family for Razor appears to be the possessions and few good memories that he has left.
It may be immature to say that Bubba doesn't have a family just because another person isn't mentioned.  Family could be the things that hold he has on to because for him it feels like love, familiar or could provide comfort.

But as a write that, I too may need to stop associating family with cookouts and graduations. I say this because in Thinking American, I don't get the feeling of happiness. Maybe family is the memories that are associated with Detroit (or any place that the speaker has lived in) but those memories bring up pain, addiction, trauma or other unwanted memories. This is that part of family that we generally sweep under the rug. The ugly sides that are generally not associated with "family."

I guess what constitutes as family depends on what definition makes you sleep the best at night.