Helicopters, Santa, and Family

I work at a school where Santa arrives in a helicopter on the soccer field at this time of year. The children shriek and wave, Santa and Mrs. Claus throw broken candy canes, and the hullabaloo is more confounding than exhilarating.

But I’m not going to write another piece on being miffed about the commercialism and pageantry of Christmas. I want to recognize what one of my young students said this week, which just might get me through the season.

During an assignment that had not much to do with the holidays but was about community, I asked a group of bright second graders to describe a place in their neighborhood that is very important to them. Most of their answers zeroed in on favorite restaurants, parks where sports were played, and the school itself. The last child to volunteer said that his family was the most important place in the community. The rest of us paused, blinked, and tried to digest his answer.

“Without my family,” the boy said, undeterred by our silence, “I would wander around the streets with no place to go. I wouldn’t even have a name.”

The teacher in me had to breathe and reconsider my urge to say, “But a family is not a place.” And I am so glad I had the presence of mind to keep my mouth shut and think for a moment.

Because family is a place. It is where we go to be completely known, in all our goodness and failing. It is the comfort zone in which to erupt with laughter, or weep because there’s nothing else that can be done. It is where we break down, and where we find the strength and shelter to put ourselves together again. A family may not be one of origin: it is often what we build through years of friendship and association. But it is always where we go to be ourselves.

The child pictured above is not the boy whose remark made my classroom pause this week. This child is my brother. He’s a middle-aged man now, experiencing a rough patch, and I hope he knows that he is a place to me, a reason why I belong, and proof we are not nameless. Look closely at the picture and you’ll see in him the bewilderment Christmas produces in both of us. It must be a family trait.

May you all be in the place you call family this holiday season.