As you might know I have now left Tangent / Lateral, and therefore am concluding a story that started almost 15 years ago. What word do you use to sum up 15 years? I’ve racked my brain and consulted the thesaurus and only one word seems to fit.
Family.
Family is a powerful thing. They help each other, support each other, fight but then make up, offer advice and provide the shoulder to cry on, they inspire, they build, and hopefully together they succeed. They make mistakes but in time are forgiven. They don’t do each other favours, they simply ‘do’.
It is often said that you don’t choose your family, usually in the negative, but the execution of this is simply not true – we choose all the time, whether to engage, whether to help, whether to call –  the relationships which we choose are the hardest to break even if the frequency of contact is limited. I see this as the most wonderful thing.
I may only have been a biological father for the last couple of years and I definitely don’t speak to the rest of my biological family enough –  but for  the last 15 years I’ve been  a dad, a brother, an uncle and even occasionally a mom. I believe I am one of the most fortunate people alive because I have not one but two families.
I have no idea what the future holds, what I am going to do, where I am going to go, but what I do know is that my family, both new and old will be there to help.
Jon Bains
Family Man
Up in the Atmosphere 