Family is often what we make it

"Lonesome Dove," the six-hour western miniseries, is one of my favorite "binge watches."

I've been watching it in bits and pieces the last few days.

Do you remember Clara, cowboy Augustus' old sweetheart who wound up marrying a Nebraska rancher? Clara is one of those women who just takes people in - a pregnant runaway wife and her two fur trader traveling companions; the baby later abandoned by this woman; Gus and the young prostitute traveling with him; a disillusioned sheriff (who happens to be the baby's father); and various cowboys who wander by all become part of her frontier family for a time.

(Yeah, pretty complicated plot, but that's what makes the story so fascinating.)

In fact, all those who stay around for a while do, in some ways, become family for each other in the very real sense of the word.

Though strangers, their need for each other leads to a depth of relating that we usually expect only in more traditional "biological" families.

And other residents of the ranch - Clara's invalid husband, her two daughters, the old Mexican ranch hand - seem to go along with such an "open family policy" as if it's perfectly natural.

Which it is.

Throughout human history, we've always made "families" in such a way. The biology-based family that we so often hold up as the only true family has always been a luxury to some degree. Illness, accident, emigration, divorce, natural and man-made disasters have all have worked together to make a family unit based solely on blood ties rather impractical.

Impractical because we never stop needing family of one sort or the other. And if our biological family is not there for us, we have to find some other way to create the family we need.

Friends can be family. A neighbor can be family. People at church can be family. Co-workers can be family. Or, as in "Lonesome Dove," people just thrown together by the whims of fate can be family.

What is important is that in such relationships we seek to create the best of what we can find in our biological family, that consistent love, nurture, support, encouragement and comfort that makes family so special.

Now, I'm not suggesting that biological families are not important. The blood ties, the years spent together, the experiences shared, make such families unique among human relationships.

What I am suggesting, though, is that many of us at one time or the other will not have the luxury of such families. It is important, then, that we learn how to create new families with the people around us. When Clara says to one of her newfound friends "you're just like family" we can all appreciate just how special that is.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."