When I needed to pick a word to juxtapose with sustainability, family automatically popped into my head. Sustaining a family is one of the hardest things to do. I automatically thought sustaining a family meant keeping them together and in touch and making sure that they're in communication. However after reading into it some more, my complete idea of family sustainability was changed. Family sustainability means to actually keep a family alive, the sustain program is one in which you can help an immediate family actually sustain and live. Sustaining a family could mean just keeping it alive. Before, my whole idea of family mixing with the word sustain was that the family name was carried on. That a family made sure that there was a next generation and a generation after the next and that was sustaining it. I do still think, in a way, that it means that, but sustaining a family means making sure it's there tomorrow and the next day, keeping it alive physically, emotionally, and mentally. Family sustainability can also mean keeping a family together especially when tragedy strikes. When a family becomes burdened with a major dilemma, sustaining can mean keeping everyone out of the chaos and making sure the family stays together. Doing everything in your power, everything possibly known to do, in order to make sure your family gets through, but not only that they get through, but they get through together. Coming from a big family, we are hardly ever in contact with each other as much as we'd like to be, but whenever a tragedy hits the family, we all make sure we come out the other side together and we're usually a stronger connected family because of it, and that in fact could be what sustaining a family is all about.

~Ryan Murphy

Back to Week One

Week One ~Murph