I doubt I would have said this 10 or 20 years ago, because I was too young and too stupid and too stubborn and far too proud then, but I’ve got a great family. I mean, a really great family. We have our problems, like all families do, but there is no doubt in my mind, not a single one, that each and every member of my family would move mountains for me, without the slightest hesitation, if I needed them. And I’d do the same, if any of them needed me, without hesitation.
Now, I don’t want to be Pollyanna about this, because believe me my little nuclear clan has had more than our fair share of knock-down, drag-out, ugly and seemingly irreparable fights over the years about stuff that really matters. Fights that I thought would never be mended, in fact. But, in time, sometimes a long time, they have all been mended, elided or, in an often necessary but acceptable alternative, ignored. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, I don’t know, but in my life, for all our differences, there’s just been no getting away from my family. I tried to run away from them, more than once, and they tried to disown me, more than once, but we’ve always found our way back to one another. Even when I didn’t want to come back, and even when they probably didn’t want me back.
That’s the funny thing about family, isn’t it? You can’t pick ’em, you’re stuck with what you get… and yet, by virtue of the indiscernible and often cruelly ironic cosmic order, you somehow end up with the one you’re supposed to have.
It took far too long in my life for me to realize how fortunate I am to be a member of the family I have. Warts and all, I love them unconditionally. They’ve stood by me when there were plenty of reasons not to, they’ve (more or less begrudgingly) accepted all of my faults and differences, they’ve bailed me out (literally and figuratively) every time I needed it and, more times than I deserved, they’ve (literally and figuratively) saved my life. What is more, I’m one of those lucky ones to have been born into a family that takes in all the wayward, loveable and unlovable, friends that we kids have brought into our home and my family has treated them all as if they were family. In fact, in my experience anyway, those wayward souls get treated better than if they were family.
That’s the kind of hospitality that I was raised with and which, generically, goes by the stereotypical description “Southern hospitality.” But, let me tell you, that sort of beneficence ain’t easy. I cannot think of a single person, no matter their magnitude of vice, that my folks would turn away from the table at mealtime. I wish I could, but I can’t credit myself with that kind of magnitude. In fact, I know people that my folks would willingly feed (and have fed) that I wouldn’t even speak to on the street. My folks are the kind of people I want to be, but they’re most definitely better people than me, for sure.
And speaking of better people than me, there is no human soul on this earth that I know who is better than my younger brother, Ben. I wrote a song about him, many years ago now, when I was in one of my very first bands, Red Hip & The Boys. Our band name came at the end of a long night of practice and beer and bourbon, when I somewhat inadvertently shared the story of my younger brother, who had a posse of imaginary friends when he was a boy that he referred to as “Red Hip and the Boys.” Our guitar player at the the time, a then-19-yr-old John Murry (who has since gone on to make it big for himself), immediately asked whether it was “Red, Hip and the Boys” (i.e., two persons and a group) or “Red Hip and the Boys” (i.e. one person and group). I didn’t know, and I still don’t know, but “Red Hip & the Boys” became our band name that night.
Anyway, here’s the song I wrote for my younger brother, and the song that I pick today for today’s “song that makes me think of family”:
No disrepect to the rest of my family, but my brother and I have a relationship that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. I know a lot of great people, but none like him. Ben is kind, brave, smart, hilarious, almost super-humanly loyal and compassionate. He’s a great dad to two of the greatest little human beings in the world, my nieces Kameryn and Chloe. He’s an entrepreneur and a peacemaker, and he has what those of us who were raised in the church would call a “spiritual gift,” the ability to make absolutely anyone, friend or stranger, feel immediately comfortable in his presence. For that, I will be forever jealous of him.
There is no possible way that I could ever tell my brother how much I appreciate being lucky enough to be in the same family as him. I can only hope this song says a part of it. It’s not a great song, I know. I was young and green and barely knew how to play the guitar when I wrote it. But it’s got the all the heart and all the love I had for him, and still have, in it.
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Nostalgic? Check out my Day 23 entry in the 2011 version of the 30 Day Song Challenge.