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My early childhood was spent in a beautiful four-story New York city brownstone that my great-grandparents owned. The floors were wood and always polished; each floor had its own kitchen, bathrooms with large giant claw-foot tubs, and a unique style that reflected its occupants. My parents, siblings and I lived on the upper floor, my great-grandparents lived on the floor directly beneath us, and my grandparents beneath them. But despite the brownstone’s blueprint that gave us the chance to live apart, we never did. We always ate as a family, downstairs in the common dining area sitting around a large oak table next to a window that opened onto our backyard. There were four generations; half the people had foreign accents and one-fourth were children. However, this was still not the full extent of my family. Over the years we absorbed many other friends, some relationships going back to the early 1900s, until we became a complicated, wonderful web filled with people we called aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, all of whom were not blood-related. My mother always said that family was what you made it.
During this past Thanksgiving holiday I spent time cooking with my Aunt Lynda; she was always the fun one, the person who taught me about shopping at Filene’s Basement and let me sip a cocktail long before I was of drinking age. As we cooked I told her that recently a friend on Martha’s Vineyard had started referring to me as Aunt Sharon to his children, something I took as a great compliment. I am not sure what loving and simple line I crossed to become part of his family, but it felt like a great place to be. Aunt Lynda smiled because she too had crossed that line over 30 years ago with my family.
Family does not have to be about lineage, blood or longevity. It is about a type of impact, a shared sense of responsibility for one another, and a nearly indefinable crossing of an invisible line that changes a good friend to a family member.
I think of Jamie Farrell, a child with two working parents whom I would regularly babysit and pick up from nursery school. She was asked by a little girl in her class if I were her mother. Jamie looked at the girl, made a face and said, “No, this is my Sharon,” with a voice that said, “Don’t you have one?”
When I tell people about living on the Vineyard I am reminded of Jamie’s face, because I think I make the same one when I talk about the Island, as in “don’t you have one,” a community that rallies to support its own, blood-related or not, during crisis and joy? Just recently, residents came together to support two families who lost their homes to fire in Vineyard Haven. I have also witnessed neighbors and strangers alike support Island families with food drives and money donations supporting the Red Stocking Fund, Boys’ and Girls’ Club, Hospice or other nonprofits and also individuals in crisis. I am reminded of the many dinner tables that are open to guests, and not just for the holidays. Yes, there are the fights, feuds and gossip that are a part of every family, but at its core the Island family is full of support, love and camaraderie.
I am also reminded of another childhood friend, a neighbor named Sherri Cohen, who was asked to draw her family for an elementary school project. She handed in a picture drawn in crayon of a white man and woman with mom and dad written beneath them, a small girl entitled me, and a brown woman and two brown girls with the words “my other mother, Marilyn, and my sisters,” written beneath them. The teacher told Sherri that she has failed her assignment because she did not follow instructions, she didn’t draw her family. The next day Sherri’s mother went to school and told the teacher never again to define what family was to her child.
It is in this spirit, I feel, that the Island family is captured. It cannot be defined in one way, in part because it continues to reach out to anyone in need.
And so this holiday season I encourage everyone to continue to redefine their family, to make room on their family tree for the Islander, washashore and visitor; the hospitalized, the homeless and the stranger. I think this is what has made, and will continue to make, our Island special. Happy Holidays.
The Secrets of Martha's Vineyard Blog contains helpful information and stories about Martha's Vineyard by The Larrier House a private rental on Martha's Vineyard. The blog is based on an article written by Sharon-Frances Moore and published by the Vineyard Gazette. [Sharon-Frances Moore former President, Executive Director, advisor to non-profits, Board of Directors, and organizations as it pertains to event planning, fundraising, community engagement, and labor and public relations, legal matters: University of Maryland New York Chapter, University of Maryland Scholarship Committee, City of National City Association, Tribeca Organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., Owens Corning, U.S. Senate; Network for Women, Hospice; Boys & Girls Club, various New York City theater groups, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church, R.N.C Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee DNC, S.E.I.U., SEIU unions]
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