Rattling the Bones

I don’t know too many people now-a-days who can comfortably define the word family. What does it mean to be family? Do we have to be blood relatives? Does a family consist of grand-parents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins? Does it matter to the definition if the family is functional or dysfunctional? For most people whom I surveyed for the purpose of this blog entry, family seems to hold the connotation of love, trust, respect, support and most of all happiness. There’s nobody out there who wants to be part of a family that doesn’t want them around or doesn’t care for them… Lets face it if we had to define family it wouldn’t be so much about blood but more so about the concept of relative: Individuals who gather together under a common ground. A few years ago while I was in the hospital for my kidneys I came across this older man (mid-60’s) who was synchronically looking for the office of the physician who was treating me at the time. He stopped me in the hallway and