Blood is Thicker Than Water, Part B

I'm continually amazed, being the cynical-yet-naive optimist that I am, when I hear references to Barack Obama's race.

The man, unlike many African-Americans, is truly one half African and one half "white". (I used to wonder about this designation when I was a kid because I'm not "white", I'm pinky-tanny-freckledy. Most "black" people I know are not "black", they are toasty brown.) Anyway, so what if Obama is one half "black"...he's also one half "white". Rejected by his African father, he was raised by a white mother and white grandparents. I think they did pretty well by him, raising-wise.

Which is to say, those same white people who hate him for being black, must hate themselves in equal parts. We all came from the same woman, found buried in sub-Saharan Africa. Anthropologists call her "Eve" because she is literally the mother of us all. Undoubtedly, she must be somewhat black, since the sun in that part of the world caused that evolutionary adaptation.

Blood should mean nothing to any of us. Half my nieces and nephews are adopted and they are every shade of the rainbow except "yellow", that skin-tone representated by Asians. Sadly, we have no Asians in my family. But our family is enriched by the niece who is half Hispanic/half white who has two children who are half Black/one quarter Hispanic/one quarter white.  And the half black/half white nephew. And the three-quarter Native American/one quarter white niece. And the "who knows what" niece, who is the most loving, funniest, prettiest niece you'd ever want to have.

And yet, they are my Blood.

I'm reminded of the climax on the musical "Showboat"...a "mulatto" lady who is one 16th black is accused of being married to a white guy. (Inter-racial marriage being a big no-no in that time and place.) In the presence of several witnesses, the husband pricks her finger, sucks the blood and later, when the sheriff comes to call, he swears, along with witnesses, that he has "Negro" blood in him as well.

Blood is blood is blood. Black people's bodies don't reject donor's blood from someome white. Red blood cells, plasma, white blood cells, all are the same regardless of the race. White people who need kidney transplants (I hope) don't refuse a kidney donation simply because it comes from a Hispanic.

I think, in another several generations, we'll all be a nice tanny/toasty brown. And won't it be grand!

Blood is Thicker Than Water

I've always wondered about the origin of this saying, but this past weekend, I came to understand it a little better.

I just got back from a family reunion, which involved three generations of my dad's family. The term "reunion" comes from the same origin as "reunite" and boy did we reunite! Daddy's sister is the only surviving sibling from his generation and she was so gracious and loving to all her nieces and nephews. She gives a wonderful meaning to the term "matriarch."

I have a theory. You see, those three generations traveled to St. Louis to reune from such far-flung cities as Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas. From Kansas City, from Little Rock. It took me two days to travel there. I went through parts of seven states. I added two state capitals to the list of state capitals I've visited.

Well, not really. I didn't really visit them. More like waved at the West Virginia dome as I flashed past it at 70 miles an hour. More like used the outer belt around Frankfort, Kentucky. But I'm gonna add them to my list anyway. It's my list and I'll do what I like.

So back to the theory. Since blood has so much iron in it, there must be some magnetic quality to it. There are poles in blood...a north and a south and they draw to each other. I should pose this theory to my cousin who runs a blood center, because she knows more about blood than anyone else, I'll bet.

So the magnetism of blood causes us normally sane individuals to leave jobs and responsibilities at home, drive for hours on end in a record heatwave, spend money at a pricey hotel...all for the sake of seeing relatives we haven't seen for 40 years. I mean, we've gotten along for 40 years without seeing these people. Why should we suddenly decide to get together, just because we share DNA?

Blood, that's why. Not the blood that causes some to be squeamish. But the blood of the tribe, the blood of the clan. We are programmed as humans to reunite with people of our blood. (I've often worried and wondered about foster children who find themselves "aged out" of the foster system. Where do they go to reunite? Where do they go to find blood?)

We found, despite the length of time in between our reunions, we could pick up just where we left off. Oh, sure, we had a few hours of bringing everyone up-to-date on the marriages we've had, the children we've sired or mared (if "sire" is the correct word for fathering a child, then is "mared" the correct word for having borne a child?).

After the catching up, we had a lot of laughs. Stories of remembrances of childhood. "Do you remember the time we came to your house for Christmas and Becky still believed in Santa and we strung her along?" "Do you remember the time Roy fell into the creek?" "I can't believe Paul proposed to you like that."

There were some happy/sad memories as well. Memories of a lost uncle who served in WWII. Memories of a handicapped cousin who died suddenly at the age of 27. Memories of my dad, who died just recently but who was a favorite uncle to my cousins. We even went to the uncle's grave site, as none of us got to attend his services. It was solemn, but not sad.

I just hoped that the spouses of all of the cousins had a good time, too. When you're an "out-law", you don't have the memories that we have. Hopefully, they enjoyed hearing about their spouses' childhoods.

We even had time to videotape an interview with my aunt, talking about her childhood. It was a snapshot of that era, of that place. Even her children learned things about their mother they hadn't known or remembered. If only our ancestors had left us that legacy.

One of my cousins is all into genealogy. He serves as the family historian and I'm hoping that the records and photos and stories we exchanged gave him a glimpse into that generation of our family tree. We have famous people in our lineage. An organist who was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The personal physician to William Penn, who sailed with Penn on the "Welcome" and help found Pennsylvania. Well, okay, maybe not famous but friends of famous people at least. Two degrees of separation.

So this magnetic property of blood, heretofore ignored, is very real. Blood draws blood. Down through generations, the family tree ever expanding to include in-laws, out-laws, children and children's children and children's adoptive children. Familial relations include other people's bloodlines but blood related all the same.

My niece, who is adopted, thinks of herself as belonging to our family. I tease her about having inherited our family's clumsiness, our family's craziness. She's known no other family. We are all of the same blood. Blood is indeed thicker than water.