On Happiness and Chosen Family

On Happiness and Chosen Family - by Eric Crow

    1999 was the first year I was on my own for the holidays. Both my parents died the year before, and I lost touch with the rest of my biological family for a number of years. When losing parents or a spouse or children, the first year is indeed the toughest, and I remember waiting at a bus stop on the way home, fighting to contain my tears (thank God for my love of Celtic music) around the one-year mark of Mom’s passing. In 2007. I’d written to my sister, Gwen, at the last address I had on file, but when I didn’t hear back, I figured she moved and gave it up to “the fates” to decide if we would see each other. Then in 2009, on a whim, I wrote a letter to my Aunt Violet (strangely, I remembered her mailing address even though I hadn’t been to her house in 30 years), asking if she had any information and within a day, I got an email from her. I was super-glad for obvious reasons and we got together a couple times over the next few months, but the time for us to re-connect wasn’t right, as we each had things to work out. Then in late 2012, I heard from her again, this time to let me know that Aunt Violet had lost her battle to cancer. We both chose to put all that past behind us, as we had been granted one more change to make it work. It’s been awesome ever since.

    Rewinding back to 2000, I got heavily involved with MCC-San Diego, joining the choir and becoming a facilitator for “Circles of Love,” a Bible study. I also had a number of new friends from a Monday night support group at The Center, as well as the people I knew at karaoke and 2-step/line dancing at Kickers; I quickly came to cherish them all, but MCC-SD was my deepest connection. I had known about the concept of “chosen family” and appreciated it superficially, but MCC-SD is where it was instilled in me. Another way of saying this was that I had “found my tribe.” One of the women interviewed in the 90s PBS Documentary on The Castro said that we (LGBTQ+ people) are the only people who have to find our tribe.” I would move to San Francisco years later, but it didn’t take moving there to get the concept down. As I became more and more involved, adding on the Bear and Leather communities of San Diego, San Francisco and then LA/Long Beach. 

    You might also call chosen family your foster family, and it in many cases, especially for LGBTQ+ people who have been kicked out of their homes or disowned by their bio family, it’s the only family they will have, going forward in life. Chosen family is who you gather with over holidays and who you celebrate your life with. Chosen family actually listens to you and helps you solve problems for you first, without thinking about what’s in it for them. Chosen family loves you for all the ways that you are and all the ways that you are not. In having a chosen family, I have managed to regain every type of bio family member I once had—a Mama and Papa, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins all over the place, several sons and even a few grandparents. At its most basic, the people a person grows up in a family are just examples of forms, suggestions on how to live life, and we are free to choose that example or find our own. If it means your own happiness for the rest of your life, find them—seek out your tribe.

    My chosen family is a better fit for me than my bio family could have ever been. Excluding my bio parents, my bio family (excluding my parents) wanted me trapped inside this weird take of a nuclear family, with a wife, kids, job and house, all by age 25. They only saw my value as it related to their version of success and how it reflected on the reputation of the family. This is an age-old story, no matter who you are, where you came from or where you’re going. My chosen family, however, always accepts the path of happiness I take, and I am happy now to include my bio sister and her husband as chosen family, as well. I’m also grateful for Gwen’s husband, Brian, and my partner’s mother and step-dad, Wanda and Dave. And for that, I am both happy and thankful. And now, my bio and chosen families are all rolled up into one. As I approach the Autumn of my life, I have all the family I want and need, and for that, I am both happy and thankful.