Every family has quirky members.
It was stand-up comedian Jeff Foxworthy who once commented on the oddness found in all families.
"If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair," the comedian once said. "Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'you know, we're all right. We are dang near royalty.'"
Few of us are royalty, of course. Well, Meghan Markle married into it, and her American family still seems to have some issues lately. Which just serves to show that, all fairs aside, each of us apparently must deal with family members who walk just a little bit off the straight line. I seem to remember a saying about that particular kind of relative.
"Every family has one of them," the saying starts, which I recall was uttered by the great philosopher, Anonymous. "If your family doesn't have one, I have an extra four or five I can give you ..."
Royal Wedding
Meghan Markle spent some time before her wedding with Prince Harry dealing with members of her family.
One relative apparently wrote to the Prince trying to talk the groom out of going through with the ceremony. That's a little less supportive than scribbling well wishes — "Here's hoping you have a life of love and happiness!" — inside a store-bought card of congratulations.
Then another relative reportedly talked about how the bride-to-be doesn't really associate much with the rest of the family. That began to sound far less surprising as time passed.
Finally, her father — who was supposed to walk his daughter down the aisle — decided to go to the ceremony, then decided to avoid it, and for a time no one knew if he was going or not, until fortunately, if you want to look at the bright side of cardiac problems, he had a heart procedure and he no longer had to decide one way or another.
I have no inside information about this, but after all this I'm betting the entire royal family felt like they had gone to a state fair, hustled back to Windsor Castle, and thought, with words in a British accent instead of a Foxworthy's Southern one, "Ya know, we're all right ..."
"We are bloody near royalty."
Much Ado
Now, in the grand scheme of life, all this family drama doesn't much matter. At least in public, Meghan Markle doesn't seem to mind, and she sincerely seems to care about both her parents. Prince Harry hasn't appeared to be upset, and he's the one who got the "please dump Meghan" note. And the queen never once has acted the least bit perturbed. The entire royal family seems to genuinely like the bride and has welcomed her with open and hugging arms, at least as much as they can hug and still be British.
Besides, by the time you read this, the wedding will be over. Prince Charles, Harry's father, will have walked the bride down the aisle. Meghan and Harry will have moved on as man and wife, with a lifetime of wedded bliss ahead of them — except, perhaps, for any holiday dinners held in America. Those could get testy.
The fact is, we don't choose our families. We are born into them. And then we all live together as best we can.
Some of us are luckier than others. I grew up in a family that didn't seem to have any dysfunctional members. Still, even that positive and loving outlook, as nice as it sounds, should cause some small amount of concern.
Anonymous, you see, has another version of that "every family has one of them" observations about odd relatives.
"If you don't think any of your relatives are odd," the quotation goes, "maybe you're the one ..."