Beyond (Poisoned) Blood and (Shattered) Bones

Family. Family was a word, concept, or even a social construct that Tim had struggled with for as long as he could remember. "M-y family are the most important people in my life, without a shadow of a doubt. From my mother, who with my father's seed, brought me forth from her womb, into this world of light and dark, wonder and horror. To my siblings who followed my pathway to life years later and then to my own family of wife and children. Above all, it’s the people who choose to be with you through thick and thin that truly define family. Nonna, Nonno, Grandad, Granny, uncles, aunts and cousins, too." He wasn't born into a traditional family. Things as they stood in the world were way past traditional, anyway, but even compared to some of the other survivors, his family situation was different.

When he watched others, some of which who still had living parents and siblings, he both felt an indifference to the connection they shared with one another and a pain, a deep rooted longing for that same feeling. That same sense of belonging to something beyond just himself. "Y-ou are born into a family, that's true, but the family you choose to keep, the family you choose to acknowledge is not always the same as the one you are given when you check out of the womb." That was when he was feeling particularly human and charitable, though. Sometimes, he saw how crippling, how debilitating and even painful the idea of family could be.

Particularly with the world in the state it was in. Tim had seen families torn apart by blind loyalty, each sibling or parent caught in a web of obligations that suffocated their freedom. It was like watching people drown in the very thing meant to save them. "F-amily, in my view, is the people who become your tribe as much as those already of your tribe. Members of your community, your social circle, your acquaintances, colleagues and most intimate of partners can be like family too. My family is more than just the Cafollas and Stewarts, the Moores, Townsends and all the other offshoots of my siblings and cousins." Tim had seen people ripped from one another by the cruel tyranny that ruled. Tim did not experience the guilt of a father as he watched his offspring being taken by force to work at the labour camps. Tim did not know the piercing wounds to the heart that losing one's spouse or partner to the sacrificial altar that the tyranny had established to satiate the bloodlust of their own overclass of rulers, the unseen that they answered to.

"A-nd that is what makes the concept and social construct of family more fluid than we may have been taught when we were younger." Many had debated their very existence. Suggesting that it was merely a construct of the tyranny to keep us mere vermin in line.

"M-uch like the concept and social construct of home that is often taught as the physical place you live that you then realise as you get older and wiser is only part of what makes a home a home. Family is the same.

Family is not just about blood, about genetic makeup and the sharing of DNA. Both concepts, home and family, evolve with us over time." All Tim knew was that he had survived because he did not have the burden of other's lives on his conscience and neither did his own weigh on anyone else's. That was before he learned the cost of getting too close.

Once, when the world had seemed on the verge of collapse, he had come close to allowing himself to feel again. Diana, a fierce woman with a fire he admired, had tried to break through his walls. But the thought of losing someone else, the guilt of being too late, made him pull away. Though, the pain of watching her being forcibly removed from the camp, and at gunpoint to marry one of the tyranny class, still played on his mind from time to time. The pain of watching her dragged away, her eyes pleading for a fate she couldn’t escape, still haunted him. At gunpoint, they forced her to marry one of the tyranny class, and he had done nothing but watch, his own heart a cold stone.

For all that, family still meant something to Tim—he couldn’t deny it. Even though he had distanced himself from the connections that once might have meant everything, he was learning to see them again. To understand why they mattered. And why they always would.

"I-t's about who you choose to share your life with. When you're younger, you may not have a choice, but as you grow, you do. You need to make up your own mind who and what your family is."

"L-eaving behind those who would abuse and use you for their own gain, for their own depraved needs and desires, for illegal and immoral reasons and reaching out to true family. People who are there for you, no matter what and regardless of what you give them in return." The concept and social construct of the family is a curious one. On the one hand there is the traditional family - born into a family of a mother and father or at least on parent. Then there are many different offshoots of that same concept and structure, involving adoption, fostering and the care system.

But, we have more than just our genetic family, because like the concept and construct of "home", we have different types of family.

For some, their family is their mother, father, siblings etc, as well as their own nuclear family, if they have one, with their partner and any children. Whereas, for others, family is a more fluid term used to describe their wider community of friends, their social circle or perhaps an organisation or company they belong to or work for.

"Y-our family, should not be based on transactional interaction and love alone, if at all. My family are the people I rely on the most and the ones I know I have hurt the most and brought the most joy to of anyone I have known in my life. Without my family, for better or worse, I wouldn't be whole. Through every trial, their presence has shaped me into who I am today."

Tim did not take note, as he should have, that family was also the uniting bond of people. Whether genetic, hereditary, by marriage or by choice and circumstance, family strengthened the resolve of the survivors and resistors as much as it pained them and hurt them when faced with adversity.

"As I sit here in the vestiges of a civilisation long gone and given way to cruel, reactive caricatures of those who came before, I now realize my mistake. I’ve spent so long pushing people away, convincing myself that detachment was survival. But in truth, it’s left me hollow. Without kin, without a tribe, I’m adrift. There’s no one left to share my burdens, my wrongs, and my rights with. No one to witness the horror and the joy, to carry the weight of what’s left of this broken world."

Tim didn’t realize, until much later, that family wasn’t just the thing that kept him going in the darkest times; it was the glue holding the survivors together, whether by blood or by choice. It was the force that brought hope, and sometimes despair, but without it, no one could truly stand against the tyranny that ruled them.

It’s only now, as the world fractures around me, that I see it—the deeper truth about family. It's not about being bound by blood or shared history; it’s about belonging to something, someone. A bond that doesn’t fade when the world gets worse. In the end, family is not just survival. It’s the reason we keep fighting.

As the tyrants stand tall and the world crumbles beneath their feet, Tim understands this now: family is the thread that holds everything together. Not just the blood ties that bind, but the bonds forged through shared pain, shared purpose, and shared survival. This, he realizes, is the real foundation of strength.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: What started as an opinion piece, became a stream that became an acrostic that became a story, that became a combination of everything. This is for my own ABCommunities Challenge, as this week ending 1/4/25 sees me in the Families community. Make of this what you will. It was an experiment.

Here are some other things:

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