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Our son has been working in Colorado on an election campaign, and now that the election is over is driving back home with his luggage. It's a bit like the cycle when he was still at university, having him home sometimes and at other times talking to him over the internet. 

Family is like that; over time the length of the gaps between seeing folk grows but still when we get back together we quickly recover the immediacy of the relationships even as they evolve along with us.

Part of growing up is modifying the definition of family to include more folk, and at times to trim back the number. Families of choice will always be special in the way that adult affirmations of faith are more meaningful than infant baptisms, at least for the infant.

Some folk look to replicate their birth families in their chosen families; others try to go in the opposite direction. I rarely know folk who find an angle between 0 and 180 degrees.

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