Too many people keep trying to define families for others. Ultimately though, each of us defines family for ourselves with some of us feeling more constrained by societal definitions than others. For me, family is something more than I deserve and something less, depending on the interaction or time of day.

As I�m writing this entry (and I am first writing it by the ancient method of pen and paper), I am by the side of a pool. My nephew, Brother, is jumping in over and over to Day-Hay. Kat and Sister are swimming around, pretending to be either dolphins or sharks. Maxiegirl and my dad are keeping watch by the side of the pool and Mr. Philately and my mom are working the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. We could almost be a Norman Rockwell painting.

But no family is the embodiment of a Norman Rockwell painting. Life is never that neat and tidy and removed from the stresses and strains of people bumping up against each other�s eccentricities. At some point, as he has done before, will lick Sister just to annoy her or Day-Hay and Kat will get after each other. Heck, it�s always possible that Maxiegirl and I will get on each other�s nerves. It�s happened before.

Because what family is not is a Norman Rockwell painting. People cannot remain posed for an unseen camera or artist�s eye forever. Nor is life a television sitcom script in which most irritations are glossed over lovingly after a half hour. People don�t follow scripts. If you try to cast the members of your family in roles, you will find the production ultimately unsatisfying and blame it on the actors when, more likely, the script is to blame.

At some point, becoming an adult means realizing that the baby voice inside you that cries out constantly for demonstrations of love is asking too much. Many people within a family give as much love as they are capable of giving. Unfortunately, while some have a gift for loving and can give buckets of love, others have only a thimbleful to share. Without reflection, we jump to accuse the latter of not loving us when the truth is that they love us as much as they are capable of doing. Anyone who demands a bucketful of love from someone with only a thimbleful to give is doomed to resentment.

Then there is the matter of the filters. Few of us can accept love gracefully and from any source. Most of us accept love the way that polarized sunglasses allow light through. Not just any light will do and not just any love will do. It must come through at exactly the right angle or it will be rejected.

Yes, in a few minutes, there likely will be a wet rear end on my lap. No, I don�t feel like getting wet just now. But afternoons like this one by the pool are too rare to focus on such things. As a rabbi I knew through my grandmother used to say, it�s just a woman with an oversized package sitting next to me and I am on a short bus ride.

Family is not perfection and no guarantee of a smooth ride but I haven�t found a sounder vehicle for traveling through life.

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