Friends or Family or Friends ARE Family

The ash scattering makes me think. Who would I want to be at such an intimate gathering? Would it be numbers that mattered? Or people who had seen my soul, and were really true to honoring my memory the way I wanted to be remembered. Natalie was not so close to her family, in the end. Her mother is in a rest home, too sick to come, and her sister, while nearby, was not really part of her life. (Though her sister has come through in EVERY way, more than anyone else, in making her memorial the way she would have wanted.) And her father caused her pain until the end. I don't know why, really, except fathers can do that.
Jonathan said it makes you wonder, what happened to family? How can people be so scattered?
But I feel different, probably more like Natalie. I think friends have saved my life. I am glad I have been able to scatter. My friends saw in me gifts and talents and wondrous things that no one in my family was really interested in, or cared about. My friends believed in me, in ways I did not feel my parents did. My friends were interested in me, cared about me, and were there for me, that for whatever reason, I did not feel like my family was. I have a wonderful family, and they have given all they can to me, and I am grateful for so much. But when it comes to my soul, I feel it did not grow and expand until I found my friends. And, in the end, like Natalie, I think I felt those people are my family.
When I imagine my own ash scattering, and what people might say or do, I feel it is the people who chose me, who loved me for who I am, who just accepted me and celebrated me without disappointment, or the warping view of pride, whose words I would want to honor me. I feel more sure that they would say and remember me as I want to be remembered.
Jonathan thinks that is sad.
But I have lived in a small town, where people never leave, and souls are bent and broken by petty social expectations, family pride, and closed mindedness. It is comforting, in one way, but horribly oppressive in another. I would have been one of the people who left.
I rejoice that in this life, whoever we are born to, we can go out and form our own families. We can find people who think like us, who celebrate us, who aim for similar ideals. Family is wonderful. Mostly, they always come through. But unless you are very very lucky, and highly unusual, that love and commitment will come with a price that friendship perhaps does not bring.
Who knows. Best is to have both. But in my life I think I am like Natalie. My friends (and lover and boys) are the ones who made me feel special and unique and seen. I think they are my family, too.