Why I’ll be celebrating my “found” family on World Outlander Day (June 1st)
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a massive Outlander fan and that it makes me (perhaps disproportionately) happy that 1st June every year is World Outlander Day!
In case you haven’t discovered Outlander yet, it’s a series of books – and now an acclaimed TV series – by author Diana Gabaldon. The series is written from the perspective of Claire Randall, a 1940s combat nurse who travels to Scotland for a second honeymoon with her husband Frank when they’re reunited at the end of World War Two after a long separation.
Claire and Frank happen to be in Scotland for Samhain (Halloween), a night that opens the veil between worlds and time. While picking Forget-Me-Nots, Claire enters the stone circle at Craig na Dun and falls through time to 1743. There, she finds herself at the epicentre of events leading to the Jacobite Rising of 1745 when Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) attempted to regain the British throne for his father.
Cursed with knowing the future and how the Rising, culminating at the Battle of Culloden, will impact Scotland, Claire is utterly alone… until she meets the dashing and brave Highland Warrior, Jamie Fraser.
Over nine books (a tenth is planned) and eight series (the last of which is currently being filmed), we follow Claire’s life and loves from her mid-twenties into old age. We also see major historical events play out, starting with the Jacobite Rising and heading into the American War of Independence.
Families of choice in Outlander
Although it was Claire and Jamie’s love story that captured my imagination with Outlander, and is what I’ve celebrated in past years, this year I’m thinking a lot about what it means to be family.
You see, one of the themes running through Outlander is the idea that family isn’t just about blood. Sometimes, our found families are just as important, if not more so, than the family we’re born into. Found families are people we choose to love like our own flesh and blood without the obligation of being related (there are also examples of less immediate relatives taking a more involved role).
There are numerous examples of this in Outlander.
Claire Randall herself is raised by an uncle after her parents die in a car crash. Jamie is given sanctuary by his uncles, Colum and Dougal, after the death of his parents.
Roger Wakefield – another major character in the books – is raised by the Reverend Wakefield after he is orphaned. Claire and Jamie’s daughter Brianna is raised by Claire and Frank (spoiler alert!)
Fergus, an orphan boy found in a brothel in Paris, is raised as Jamie’s son and takes his surname during his wedding in book three, Voyager. Jamie is stepfather to two girls, the oldest of whom, Marsali, travels under his protection to the new world in America.
Jamie also acts in loco parentis to his nephew, Young Ian Murray, until Ian offers himself to the Mohawk tribe in exchange for the captive Roger. Ian finds family and community within the Mohawk, especially when he marries a young woman from the tribe.
Brianna’s travel companion, Lizzie, is accepted into the Fraser family until she enters *cough* an unconventional marriage of her own with the Beardsley twins!
Jamie’s biological son, William Ransom, is raised by Lord John Grey, a man who acts as surrogate father, brother, and even husband throughout the series.
In fact, most of the key characters in Outlander find family beyond their biological parents or siblings. When we do see blood families (I’m thinking the Browns of Brownsville), the relationships are often dysfunctional.
Elijah and I have our own found family
Why am I talking about this today? Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about found or chosen families in my own life recently.
You see, I haven’t had a relationship with my own biological father, and my birth mother gave me up to the care system when I was 12 months old. I don’t know of any cousins, siblings, grandparents, or blood relatives. I was abused while in a foster home, so didn’t have any sense of family there.
Elijah’s father decided from the outset that he didn’t want to be involved in Elijah’s life, so we’ve been a family unit of two since Elijah was born.
Thankfully, over the years, we’ve met some wonderful people who have become our chosen the family, the people who love us unconditionally and walk our path of life with us.
This topic is particularly poignant because Elijah and I recently lost someone very close to us: the lady I affectionately called “mum GG” or “Nanny G”. I’m heartbroken. Bloody cancer. We didn’t have blood ties, but we had something that, to me, is far stronger. We had loyalty, love, and commitment founded on choice, on an ongoing decision to show up and be there for one another. The world will never be the same, but I feel so lucky that we found kinship with each other.
Found family has been on my mind for other, happier reasons this year too.
As you may know, Elijah turned 18 recently. We celebrated his birthday while on holiday with the people we both think of as family, not one of whom is connected to us by blood. It was such an amazing occasion, and Elijah and I were truly immersed in love and community. It was wonderful to see Elijah so cherished and adored; he deserves nothing less!
So, this World Outlander Day, I’ll be thinking about families and how they’re all different. Claire and Jamie’s love story is just the beginning; it fuels a complicated and wonderful family that spans time and continents and that isn’t always defined by blood.
I love that message because it resonates with my own experience of family. What a blessing.
And if you haven’t read/watched Outlander, what are you waiting for?!