International Day of Families
Celebrate International Day of Families with these found family romances!
Nico is Ivy’s found family. He’s her rock and she doesn’t even know it.
“Look, your bizarrely shared past is next level. I get that. But you have got to stop guarding your heart. You deserve love, happiness, and a future filled with trust and security,” Nico says. “I’ve watched you hold everyone in your life—including me—at arm’s length. I’m awkward as hell, so that’s okay. Our friendship can take it.” All this earnestness is chipping away at me. I feel a tear threaten to spill over. I’ve never heard Nico talk like this. “But now that you’re moving to the other side of the country. To the scariest state in the Confederacy. To a place I cannot follow this time—my Black wife and my Jewish ancestors will not allow me to.” Did he follow me here to LA? I guess I never realized.
“Nico—” I start. But he cuts me off.
“Nope. I’m not done. Shut up, Ivy.” He raises an eyebrow. I shut up. “Now that you’re moving so very far away, I need you to cut this shit out. It doesn’t have to be Adam, but you have to open your heart. And if it is Adam,” he pauses for dramatic effect. Hey, that’s my move. “If you decide that you want to try with Adam, you’re going to have to forgive him.”
Staring at my best friend, this person I’ve taken for granted since childhood, I simply nod my head.
Naomi and Ximena are Holland’s found family. They rely on each other.
Late last week, the three of us met in North Carolina for the one-year anniversary of Aidan and Ethan’s tragic deaths. Naomi, Ximena, and I visited the meadow where we buried the boys without caskets—just tulip trees, goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum, if you must know), and Indigo Buntings. The stones we selected and engraved were nestled deep in the late summer growth. We each opened a can of Mullinax Stout to toast our dearly departed with their favorite local brew. After visiting long enough to tell all our favorite stories and see a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus, Aidan would have wanted to hear me say), we drove our rental car to the spa.
Between facials and massages and body scrubs, we drowned our sorrows in fruit-infused water and tears. The staff were so kind and generous with us, bringing tissues and tea when they walked onto the terrace to find three widows engaged in a full-swing pity party.
We spent that night and the next in the penthouse suite watching tearjerker films (Terms of Endearment, Call Me By Your Name, Lion, Marley and Me, all the best ugly cry movies) on the television above the fireplace and videos of family vacations on each other’s phones. We drank all the booze and slept three-to-a-king.
Snuggled between my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, I slept through the night (both nights!) for the first time in a year. I loved the mini-break and the companionship, and I hated to leave.
After three days of robes and room service, I returned to work more exhausted than I’d felt in forever. Grief has a way of robbing me of my precious positive energy. I felt with painful clarity each moment I spent with my husband and every second I have survived without him—simultaneously.
