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Family ties

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I once got lost at Niagara Falls while crossing the border from the USA back into Canada and somehow made it back into Canada without every going through customs, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about the kinship of family ties.

Happy Wednesday to you. It’s a really busy week for me. Monday was a holiday here in Ontario and although it’s nice to get an extra day added to the weekend, when you’re self employed like I am it means squeezing a normal 5 day workload into the remaining 4 days. But I’ll make do.

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: I’m going to follow up on Darrell’s fact from Monday. He mentioned the Haskell Free Library and Opera House that straddles the US/Canada border between Stanstead Quebec and Derby Line Vermont. I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been there. However, there used to be a tavern not far from where I live called Taillon’s International Hotel that I did visit once. It straddled Dundee, Quebec and Fort Covington, New York. It was commonly referred to as the Halfway House. The building was built in 1820, two years before the border was surveyed. The bar room was split between the two countries and even had a pool table where you could strike the cue ball in one country and sink your ball in the other. The interesting thing about the place was the fact that the drinking age at the time in New York was 19 whereas it was only 18 in Quebec, and that made it a common hangout for American teens who would hang out on the Canadian side.

Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
We form many ties during our lifetime. We form them with friends, schoolmates, coworkers, and neighbours, but none of these compare to the family ties we form.

With the former we get to choose who we associate with. We decide who we want to hang out with at school, who we want to be friends with in our day to day life and even who we want to converse with in our neighbourhood.

But we have no say when it comes to family. Family is who we’re brought up with. In most of these cases it’s blood that ties us, but blood and family are not always synonymous. Someone who is adopted can have family ties just as strong as someone blood related.

Sometimes good friends become so close that they become family. My godmother wasn’t related to me at all, she and my mother were like sisters, I called her Aunt Audrey and I was closer to her than any of my true aunts.

I have a friend, Scott, who is like a brother to me. I would drop whatever I’m doing in a heart beat if he needed something from me and I know he would do the same. I consider him family.

So blood related or not, these family ties are a special relationship like no other.

Now the thing that’s special about true family ties, not the ones you form yourself with friends, but the ones with your relatives, is that oftentimes these bonds are between people, who if they weren’t family, would never form relationships together.

I had a cousin that I saw maybe once or twice a year. We were completely different in our tastes, our personalities and our interests. We had nothing in common. If he was just another kid at school I can honestly say that there’s no way we would have been friends. And yet, when we were young, and our parents would get together, the two of us would have all sorts of grand adventures. We’d figure out stuff to do together, we’d try games the other was interested in, and we usually had a good time. I always looked forward to catching up with him and comparing our very different lives. He passed away quite a few years ago but despite our differences I miss him. He was family.

The other thing that’s special about family ties is that you can almost always count on family in a pinch. I have to say almost because I know there are some families out there that don’t get along. I feel sad when I hear of siblings, or parents and offspring who have lost contact for whatever reason. But I hope that’s the minority of families out there.

For the most part, family ties form a lifeline you can count on. You heard me talking recently about my son Ryan and how he found a job in Ottawa and wouldn’t be coming home for the summer. There was a small problem with this. Ryan and his schoolmates leased a house for next year but they couldn’t move in until May 1st. But Ryan started his new job on April 20th. Luckily Kim has a cousin that lives in Ottawa. We called her up, and when she heard about our plight she immediately invited Ryan to stay with her and her family until he could move into his own house. We don’t talk to them very often but there was absolutely no hesitation from her when the question came up. That’s the bond of family ties.

My mom had a big family. I had many cousins living in Quebec that I hadn’t seen in a very long time, some for over 20 years. But when my mom passed away, they almost all came to pay their respect. It was nice to reconnect with them. Meet their families. Find out how their lives have been and bond, before they left. There’s a chance I’ll never see some of them again. But I’m sure, that if I was in a bind I could call any one of them up, and because of the family ties we share, I could count on them for support.

Here’s what I learned.
Good friends, close friends, even best friends are great to have. You can even say they’re a necessity. However nothing can compare to the relationships you form with family.

There’s a very good chance that the Family ties you have are what made you who you are today.

Now I’m not naive enough to think all families are perfect. I know there are families out there that are torn apart by abuse, alcohol, drugs, and many other reasons. All I can hope for is that people in these circumstances can find someone to turn to. Because life is so much better with family ties.

My dad and I picked my brother up at the airport on Monday. He’s staying with my dad while visiting from Vancouver.

I’ve mentioned it before on this podcast. I’ve always considered myself an only child with two older brothers. There’s 15 years difference between myself and my middle brother, and add another year and a half to my oldest brother. I have very few memories of either of them living in the same house as me hence my being brought up as an only child.

The one visiting from Vancouver is my oldest brother Bob, although he decided to call himself Rob after moving out west, which was before I was a teenager, so technically he’s been called Rob for most of his life but he’s still Bob me and to everyone around here.

Bob and I don’t have a whole lot in common. With almost a 17 year age difference we’re almost of a different generation, I mean, he gets a senior’s discount. If you’re listening Bob, yes I’m making fun of you.

Now of course we aren’t completely opposite. We do have a similar sense of humour, our taste in movies and TV shows are very close, and we’re both creative people in our own different ways.

But for the most part, he and I are vastly different people, we have very different passions, different interests, different philosophies and different beliefs. And yet, the family ties that bind us mean I love my brother despite those differences.

When we get together, and that happens roughly once a year which is lucky considering how far apart we live, we have a great time together. I look forward to every visit we have. I love hearing about what he’s been up to, and what he has planned. I love sharing stories of his family and mine. And I’m always sad when it’s time for him to depart.

There are things he and I will never see eye to eye on, but that doesn’t matter. The family ties that make us brothers is stronger than any differences we may have.

So if you have relatives out there that you haven’t talked to in a while because life has gotten in the way, I encourage you to reach out to them. Say hi. Find out how they’ve been. There’s no better time than now to strengthen those family ties.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

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