There's all kinds of family. There are the ones tied to you by blood, the ones which are hard to lose. And then there's the people you drag into your circle. They're there because they want to be, and in a way that makes them even more precious.
Except they aren't really yours. And sometimes they have to leave.
Disaster has struck. It's money - always the money - and four of my impromptu family will have to leave. The quiet, staunch older cousin. The carefree aunt. The snarky, no-nonsense aunt. The beloved older sister.
I have so many good memories, of all the times they gathered around me, of the support they gave just by being. Those memories only hurt now, because I'm greedy for more of them and they can't happen.
They aren't going to be dead. They'll be out there, coming over for the odd coffee or meeting but it won't be the same. Because they'll find their own family, they'll build it again just like I built mine when I first came here, and call me selfish but that thought hurts even more, the thought that they'll come back all detached and distant and not family anymore.
It's going to be so quiet next year. There won't be replacements for them, because money. There will be gaps and nothing to fill them in, nothing but the ones left huddling together as close as we can.
When the news first fell, I ran around, trying to be comforting to both those who had to go and those who would be left. One thanked me three times for coming to talk to him; he was quietly, sadly happy to speak to me. I moved to pat another on the shoulder. He immediately got up for a hug.
One I had to leave for a while. She was staring and not listening to anything I said and not moving.
I don't know what to do except be my usual, clownish self. It's what I'm good at - distract, make them laugh for a while, so they don't think of what is happening.
The clown wants to cry too.
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