A Family is a Team

My uncle Phil passed away late Monday night and today was his funeral.  He was around 93 or 4 as far as I can calculate.  As we gathered at the cemetery, it was eerily reminiscent of a virtual team team coming together for some face time.  Some people see a lot of each other, some are only seen at the obligatory times of life transitions.  And some stay in the shadows and are never seen.  One is the subject of brief discussion.  No one’s heard from him in years and no one seems to miss his presence.  No, I think, it’s exactly like a team.  You don’t get to choose your relatives and, most of the time, you don’t get to choose your team.   You work with what you have, respect each for who they are, and try your best to do what needs to be done.

Phil went to work every day, selling fur coats in New York City, well past his 90th birthday.  After Jeanette, my aunt and his life partner of over 50 years, died, age caught up with him.  A leg infection finally stopped him from taking the subway from Forest Hills every day. It was at that point that I realized we had more in common than family.  We were hidebound entrepreneurs that had no intention of ever hanging up our boots.  But now he was resigned to moving in with his daughter and her husband.  They took him to work with them – they run a small clothing shop – but there isn’t room on a team for two who want to do the same thing.  Especially when one has no industry experience and flagging energy.

So I’d call him when I was on the street in Philadelphia, walking from home to office to appointments, whenever I had a few minutes. We talked about business – mostly his – since in both our minds he would soon return to it and market intelligence would be vital to his commercial success.    My inputs were limited, but appreciated – the first day it was cold enough for people to wear fur, what the Walnut Street furrier was showing in his window, what the fur protesters were saying.  It was a way of staying in the game – being on the team.

Today we celebrated his place on our family team, we of rapidly declining numbers.  Among the mourners was a young man I didn’t remember.  But I recognized his name: Phil’s employer of many years, Neustadter Furs.

A work team becomes family.  It can be difficult to tell where one starts and one leaves off.