I suppose I know more about the importance of having strong family bonds then the average person.

Mostly because I was not fortunate enough to ever have such an experience.

My life was one of fending for myself as far back as I can remember. I'm thinking back to maybe over 50 years ago when I was around 5 years old.

As I have come to realize, there are many, many individuals in my generation who have come from broken, dysfunctional families. Most of us were forced into our own little world. A world where we found at least a modicum of peace and comfort. A world of aloneness and solitude that we shared with no one.

Not friends. Not parents. Not siblings.

No one.

A behavior that seared highly charged emotional childhood trauma so deeply into our sub-conscious, that even as adults most of what we do and say is still tied to those same sub-conscious feelings.

I had a mother I have no memory of, a father I only saw twice in 40 years, a sister I went 18 years without talking to, and a brother I never saw for over 30 years. In fact the last contact I had with my brother was last year when I poured his ashes into a river that swept them out to sea.

In talking to his few friends and associates, I realized that he lived a life of seclusion exactly like mine. As was the case with myself, he found the most comfort in being alone with the moments of peace that isolation provided. Isolation from the emotional trauma we dealt with on a daily basis as children.

He never married, but my sister and I did and both marriages were disasters and soon ended.

Growing up on your own, has some advantages. Growing up without any family bonds teaches you quickly and at a very young age how to fend for yourself.

In effect, you become exceptionally street-smart and aware(or should I say wary)of what is happening around you. You learn quickly, feeling the only one you can trust is yourself. The only one you can turn to for support and comfort is the person you see in the mirror.

I just can't express how important family bonds would have been to me. It is impossible to calculate how much I missed out of in life by being forced into the life-long world of an introvert. I just can't possibly list all the times I wish with all my heart I had a family to turn to. A brother to go fishing with. An older sister to get advice from. A family to have a Christmas dinner with.

Support from someone I could trust completely in the times when my world came crashing down, but instead, was left to fend for yourself on pretty well every level. Just as I had done since I was a child.

So if you have a family with strong bonds, consider it a gift of the highest order. Embrace that gift with all your heart.

Life is such that unhappy, and sometimes devastating things happen to all of us, and believe me, you don't ever want to be in the situation where you have absolutely nobody to turn to.

Learn more about this author, Ray Fauteux.
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