GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Each summer seems to be a time when families who lived distanced from one another try to get to visit. Friends take their vacations to see other friends. It happens around major holidays as well. What, may we ask, keeps us tied to people whom we would probably not have as friends or associates if they weren't blood related?

From the Go English.com site: "People in the same family are related by blood and "blood is thicker than water" says that family ("blood") relations are more important than relations with friends. Example: "When my best friend and my brother got in a fight I had to help my brother; blood is thicker than water." "Blood is thicker than water" compares the thickness of blood (family relationship) to the thickness of water (friendships) and says that our family relations are more important ("thicker") than all others. Example: "Friends will come and friends will go but your family is always there for you; blood is thicker than water." Family relations (blood) are more important (thicker) than other relations (water) so "blood is thicker than water.""

Is this true any longer? I have been aided in times of stress in my life by friends more meaningfully than family members yet my ties are close to my family. I've concluded that only family members share a common emotional experience of family, cultural ties, and family history. There is always the family game of trying to find out which relative passed on the genes currently seen in a person in the current generation.

Today, with all the books about Vampires, making them seem a reality in our world, it would seem necessary that blood indeed be thicker than water with a very different meaning than the origin of the phrase. Thus was spawned a new generation of jokes about vampires never making deposits but only making withdrawals from blood banks.

Do a Google search for blood and loyalty and you get 5 million hits. Most are song lyrics and games. The concept has been in question since Cain and Abel where Cain is portrayed as the 'wicked' one. Today, due to instant world coverage by cameras as well as stories, we are shown example after example of parents killing their children, children killing their parents, and all combination of family violence and abuse. What happened to the thick blood phrase?