Family Tree Nourished During the Holidays

My children will spend this Christmas with their large extended family--aunt, uncles and cousins, grandparents and a great-grandfather they haven’t seen since we were last in Ohio, two years ago.

I’ll spend Christmas with that same family . . . though they are no longer relatives of mine.

My familial relationship with them ended--technically, at least--five years ago with the death of my husband . . . their brother, uncle, grandson, son.

Now I’m bound to them only by love, memories, respect and tradition . . . and by three daughters, who keep me connected to the circle.

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There is something about the Christmas season that brings family ties into sharper focus.

Maybe it’s the “who should we buy presents for?” dilemma that arises in some clans each year. Or the holiday nostalgia that brings to mind the simpler family configurations of an earlier time.

In any case, family trees survive despite broken, missing and twisted branches, and thrive as new limbs are grafted on. And family bonds can be sealed by love as well as by blood.

I feel it in my own family, and see it among the families of friends.

Like the woman I know who is flying here this year from New Jersey to spend Christmas with a stranger--the daughter she gave up for adoption 24 years ago.

And my neighbor Helen, who will play Santa on Christmas Eve for the first time, as she celebrates with her 6-year-old foster son.

And my friend Lily, who will struggle this year to fill the empty spot left when she lost the family whose Christmas memories she shares.

Six years ago, Lily married a man with two young daughters and set about helping him--and his ex-wife--rear the girls.

She cheered from the stands at their softball games, planned birthday parties and taught them to dance. She baked cookies for their Girl Scout troops, stayed home from work to nurse them through stomach flu.

She came to know their friends and their friends’ mothers, hosted sleepover parties at her home. On Mother’s Day, they gave her presents. Last Christmas, they had dinner at her parents’ home.

But after five years as a family, her marriage to their father foundered. Now her bitter divorce has left her with the standing of a stranger in her stepdaughters’ lives.

“For a while, I was too angry to care,” she admits. She found pleasure in her new-found freedom. No more orthodontist appointments or soccer practices to plan her social life around.

But after awhile, she began to miss them and to wonder: Did they miss her pancake breakfasts and bedtime stories? Did they remember her when they said their prayers? Did they still consider her family?

She hasn’t spoken to the girls since she moved away and has heard from them only once, with a card that arrived on her birthday. “It really hit me then. How I used to think of them as my girls. How we spent all that time together, and it all counts for nothing now. The former stepmother . . . that’s me.”

She has thought of calling her former husband, asking to see the girls during the holidays. But he has a new girlfriend now, she’s heard; they’re constructing another family.

“I have to face it,” she says. “We were a family only as long as he was around.”

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My late husband was the glue that bound his California family--me and our daughters--to the legions of kinfolk he had back home.

And while I have grown to love them over the years, I cannot claim his folks as my family.

I have no history with them that does not include him. And it is hard to spend time at their family home without hurting from the ache of his absence . . . like the phantom pain from a missing limb.

But while they no longer are my in-laws, my husband’s parents are still the only grandparents my children have. And because they are not well enough for cross-country travel, they rely on me to bring their grandchildren home.

And I have not let them down.

On the final day of our most recent visit, as I prepared for our return trip here, my husband’s mother entered the room, her arms full of clothing she’d bought for the girls. She sat quietly while I packed their suitcase, then blurted out as I snapped it shut, “I’m so glad you’re taking care of the children.”

It felt almost like a slap, an insult . . . Was she saying she had no faith in me, that she expected me to neglect my children--for career, romance, my own selfish needs--the minute her son was off the scene?

Then I looked up and met her eyes, and saw a mix of fear and gratitude that spoke volumes beyond her words. And I knew that she was struggling too with what was to become of us, now that the woman raising her grandchildren no longer was part of her family.

I glimpsed for a moment the world of possibilities--all of them beyond her control--that could threaten her sense of family, reduce her to one of those desperate grandparents who must sue to see their children’s offspring.

The reality is that I’m still not sure how these people fit into my life these days. But our lives are locked together, come what may, because they are my children’s family.

And I find that’s enough to let me say I’m spending this Christmas with my family.

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Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.