JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT FAMILY DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY ARE NOT FAMILY

 

     I have been very fortunate to have grown up in a wonderful loving family. My aunts and uncles were surrogate parents and I treated my first cousins like siblings. However, there have been and still are many people in my life that were not at all genetically related but remain as close to me as my own blood relatives. 

 Arlene and I moved to Florida just over a year ago. The first two weeks of October 2019 were crazy with all of the packing, showing the house, and making arrangements to move. The Jewish High Holidays presented themselves during that fortnight and even though we had no time and all of our dishes were packed we still managed to have a Rosh Hoshanah dinner for what we like to call our Orphan family. The participants were as follows;

 Aaron and his son Ari. Aaron is our Godson and his parents are very close friends of ours. 

 Rachel and her father, Sam. Rachel went to high school with Arlene and they reconnected one Sabbath morning when they bumped into each other in synagogue. 

Carol. Carol and her significant other, Stan were close friends with Arlene’s sister, Rochelle and we became close friends. After Stan passed away we urged Carol to join us at all holidays.

 Beatrice. Bea is our daughter’s girlfriend and we love having her join us.

 Zach and Guiliana. Zach’s mother was a close friend and Zach was living in the neighborhood with his father. His father passed away and Zach continued to join us and eventually we added a plus 1 to include his bride, Guiliana. 

Here is a picture of that last holiday meal together. 

 


      I grew up next to an elderly couple named David and Sylvia. They were an extra set of grandparents for me and my sisters and when their daughter from Buffalo, NY came to visit with her husband and three children we hit it off and became close friends. We hit it off pretty well and had lost contact but social media brought us together again. They were in attendance at my father’s 100th birthday bash. I also discovered that there is a distant DNA connection between our families. Not surprising, as this is the case between most Ashkenazie Jews. 

      My sister Cheryl has a significant other by the name of Alan. I like him a lot, not only because he is a great guy but because he treats my sister like gold. He is intelligent, generous, empathetic, and sincere. At some point in time I will stop calling him my sister’s boyfriend and just refer to him as my brother-in-law. Oh yeah. He is also a bike rider. 

 


      My parents were best friends with three other couples in Erie that when we got together it was almost like a family reunion. Abe and Lil were responsible for my parents meeting in the first place. Lil was from Toronto and my father joined them on a trip to Canada one weekend. They fixed him up with my mother and within 6 months they were married. I recently contacted their grandson, Isaac and sent him some pictures of his grandparents. 

     Sid and Jerry were close friends. Sid owned a men’s clothing shop so I got all of my clothes at a good discount. Their son, Alan and I were in boy scouts together and their oldest daughter married a Canadian guy who happens to fall into that same category of a distant cousin.

      Charlie and Mayme were the most special to me. Charlie was my father’s best friend from about age 12 and that friendship never wavered. They were Uncle Charlie and Aunt Myme to my sisters and I and their two sons were like cousins. When my son, Philip was a toddler and my parents went to Arizona for the winter, Charlie and Mayme invited us to their house Friday nights for Shabbat dinner. Her chocolate cake was the best dessert. They always struggled a little financially but their golden hearts made them the richest people I ever knew. If I were to construct a list of my favorite people in the world they would definitely be tied for number one.  Here is a picture of them dressed up for Halloween.


 

      We all have close friends that we include as family. Even though genealogy is the study of our blood relatives and family connections it would be a disservice to ignore the light in our lives that our “non family members” provide.

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