Finding your Tribe

Sheryl and Dave's kids with our boys. Carlye and Seth are now parents with sons of their own.

This morning Sam woke pretty early for a Sunday and headed out to his car with his ukulele. Less than an hour later, we received a text on our phones with the caption, “I found the right place!” His short video was shot in a park filled with other uke players, many just like Sam and many more my age. He found a jam session filled with his people! I’d be more excited if they were making jam, but for my son, he found his musical tribe. And that is truly a glorious feeling.

While Sam was at the park, we drove down to the beach. On one of the most beautiful Sundays of the summer, we got to relax without a care in the world. That is also a glorious feeling. Looking around the crowded beach, there are communities of people on every blanket. People are sleeping, people are swimming, people are on their iPods being very antisocial (like me). Everyone has their own tribe. There are cute bikini-clad girls who look great in their selfies, families with way too many sets of sandy arms, legs, and feet, older folks hoping the sand doesn't fall in their lunch, and then, of course, the women next to us trying to install their beach umbrella tent thing and wishing they had an engineer in their tribe.

Finding your tribe can be as fleeting as a jam session in the park. It can also be found through the accident of your birth, with connections you spend your entire life discovering. Our two-week free membership to Ancestry introduced Norman to ancestors on trees he didn’t know he had. Facebook and Ancestry did more for the growth and closeness of an international community than any other modern creation. I follow people on social media from all over the world and I consider some of them to be my good friends. Artists inspire me and bloggers offer advice just when I need it. An Instant Pot community on Facebook instantly answered a question I had in the middle of making dinner! That’s what friends are for. I still prefer the old-fashioned kind who is there with a hug when you most need one, but community should be a part of life wherever can you find it.

Our tribe seems to be growing lately. Another baby boy was just born, Spencer Grey Rubin. Spencer is the son of Norm’s godson, Seth, the grandson of his oldest buddy, David, and the grandnephew of his Aunt El, one of my oldest and dearest friends. Spencer was born into a community of people who already adore him. We can’t wait to meet him next week at the Bris, and not just because Norman gets to enjoy some lox on a bagel. Spencer and his slightly older cousin, Sonny, were both born this year and both carry the name for their grandmother, Sheryl. In the Jewish religion, we name a child in memory of someone who passed on before they were born. It is a tradition steeped in love and honor for the memory of someone special. If anyone deserves two strapping boys to carry on her legacy, it is David’s wife, Sheryl.

When I gave birth to Zach (who carries the name for my own mother), Sheryl was my lifeline. Without having a mother or a mother-in-law, Sheryl stepped in and helped me buy an outfit for Zach’s Bris, she showed me how to bathe my son and hold onto his tiny, soapy, slippery body, and she gave me the confidence to be a mother. She also taught me the very definition of community. People helping people, not because they are related, but because they care.

So next week, we honor a new baby and the memory of another friend who should have been a grandparent. That’s community. Always changing, always growing and very much a part of how you define yourself. Who's in your tribe?