On Family

You do not choose your family. The Universe or the Great Divine or God the Father somehow coordinates a man with a woman to create life. The way it usually goes down, we end up with a mother, a father and a family. We have our father's eyes and our mother's laugh. Our grandma gives us wrinkled up, perfume scented dollar bills from her bosom. Our uncle uses the salad shooter to chop up his marijuana. We don't choose this family. This is the family we are given. We (hopefully) love them as they are given, just the way they are.

There is also family that we choose. And while blood relationships cannot be replaced, the family that you choose is almost more special. There are people who enter into our lives as strangers and remain as kin. The family we choose is not based on obligation or happenstance. The family we choose is based on friendship that runs so deep that it becomes honor and unconditional love; the stuff family is made of.

The interesting thing about the family of choice is that it can sneak up on you. Sometimes it seems that the friendships we try to cultivate and maintain are not the ones that become the most familiar. It seems as though the people who come into our lives at inopportune times or in ordinary ways become the most important. While your sorority sisters or your co-workers may share common ground with you, the people who stumble into our lives are often more authentic, more imperfect, more...like family.

I am blessed with a beautiful family of blood. While I am not close to very much of my extended family, my mother, little brother and father have always been constants. I then made perhaps the most important addition to my family of choice when I took a vow to my husband. Then the Universe, the Great Divine and God the Father brought us together and we created a most special blood family member in our daughter. My blood family was there when I got married and when I had my baby. They were there when it mattered. So was my chosen family.

I am blessed to have a cherished friend who is in every way as faithful as they come. I have met only one other person with the level of loyalty that my best friend possesses, and that is my brother. I have only met only one other person who accepts me exactly the way I am and that is my mother. My best friend can come to my house when it is a mess, help me with the things she knows are difficult for me and share silence with me without awkwardness. When my husband was recently hundreds of miles away from me and my newborn baby I never felt alone. Like my husband would always, always come to my aid and like my mother would always, always come to my aid, my best friend would do the same. And she would be even more helpful than I would think she would be.

I have another friend who has seemed familiar since the day we met. He was at our wedding just a few weeks after we met, and he almost superimposes himself into my memories of family reunions and Thanksgivings. He is young, gifted and black and I am always proud of him like he is my second little brother. His presence is very quiet, but always loving and he says more with the twinkle in his eye than he does when he speaks. The hour before we pulled away from our home in Cleveland, he was there to do the unglamourous job of helping Eric pack the car, take out the trash and sweep out the garage. He waved goodbye to my baby. He made sure he saw us off. He told us that we'd see him again soon.

Families survive separation. They survive trips to far off colleges, immigration to far off lands to provide better for the family and they certainly survive out of state moves. While distance or even time may be great, family is always family and family is never, ever far away. Friendships of fancy are very easily lost. Lovers taken lightly may be lost as quickly as tissues in the wind. But that family we choose, sometimes even more than the family of blood will never be lost or forgotten. These rare, special friendships survive the distance. Because after all, you do not lose family that easily.

So here's to my family. All of it, beautifully and perfectly flawed and special. And to the family that I have had the privilege to choose, thank you for choosing me in return. `

Defend Cleveland

Cleveland. City of Dreams. Paris on the Cuyahoga. Not the way most people would describe this grey-skied, crime-ridden, population-declining city. But,for this great lakes girl, it is the truth. And let me tell you why.

Growing up on the shores of Lake Ontario, the grey skies are the permanent landscape, the snow makes us hearty and wind chapped and going to the beach means walking along the algae filled lake. We go out in the worst snowstorms and we cherish the sunny, summer, great lakes days like each one may be the last. For me, this is home. This is what makes me who I am.

I am from Rochester, NY. Most people do not know western NY. You leave this part of the country and mention NY and people immediately think Manhattan, Brooklyn, maybe Scarsdale. People do not know that western NY is closer to Cleveland, OH and Erie, PA than it is to New York City. New York City is a universe away. Western NY is great lakes country. It has a culture of its own. The people drink Labatt, they play euchre and they do not buy bread, bottled water or batteries when the forecast calls for 5 feet of snow. Home.

I left home and went to college in the most ivoriest of ivory towers. True to the lyrics of the Dartmouth alma mater, the granite of New Hampshire is in my muscles and my brains. The east coast, ivy league experience is also a part of who I am. I was in the glee club, a sorority, even a secret society. I fit in there. I walk that walk and I know that language well. But, it isn't home.

When I came to Cleveland years ago I was embarrassed. My friends were in New York, DC, Boston. Their halls towers were still ivory and their classmates still had blue blood. I, on the other hand was here in walleye eating, corn hole playing Browns Country. And I resented it.

After 3 years of law school and visiting the city as a student, I bought a home in Cleveland Heights to settle down with the man I love. I no longer attended school in Cleveland, I lived here. I had to take the time to learn my city. I learned about the ethnic restaurants tucked here and there, that life existed across the river on the west side and that awesome shopping, concerns and exhibits come to Cleveland all time time. I sipped white wine at Blossom while watching the world class Cleveland orchestra. I bought designer accessories at Saks Fifth Avenue. I strolled through festivals with belly dancers and avant garde artists and food vendors serving greek delights. I ate at lenten fish fries, I drank golden lager from Great Lakes Brewery. I volunteered with women in need. I people watched at the independent cafes. I attended a film festival. I wandered through the stalls at the Westside Market. I sat in the summer sunshine while cheering on the Tribe. I cheered for the hometown boy as he won the title of The Next Iron Chef and smiled when I shook his hand while chatting with him at his restaurant. I had kegs and eggs for breakfast and stumbled in the streets on St. Patrick's Day. I high-fived strangers and danced in the streets when our Cleveland Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference Finals.

I travelled the roads of the city and truly enjoyed it with my friends, my Cleveland family. I fell in love here. I got engaged here. I got married in the ballroom at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Cleveland. I made my baby on one of those great lakes sunny days when the sun hangs low in the sky. I gave birth here. I walked along the shores of the great lakes once again. I did not grow up here, but I grew here. I believed in Cleveland, and it believed in me.

So, as I leave this city that I love and cherish, this Cleveland that I constantly defend, I shed a tear and I pour a sip of Dortmunder on the soil for everything and everyone I know and love in this city. If you get to know it, you will love it too. Defend Cleveland. Believe in Cleveland. If you do, she'll believe in you, and you will see what makes this place a City of Dreams.