Better sit yourself down for this. I have proven one of the laws of the universe wrong. I assure you, I did not set out to rewrite history. It was never my intention to erase a fundamental truth we’ve all been going along, la-de-dah, believing for years. But when you stumble on a revelation, it seems the thing to do is share it with the world. So let’s begin the debunking.

Here’s the so-called ironclad rule I have found issue with: “You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.” Mull that one for a second. You’ve heard it before. We all have. It seems to be saying: You’re stuck with your family, like it or not. Pretty straightforward.

This saying, or adage … expression … whatever it is, seems fairly watertight. Although, now that I think about it, you get to choose who you marry, and that’s basically promoting a friend to family. So, ahhh … I haven’t even gotten to my loopholes yet and – hey. You can also choose to adopt. Which is choosing family. This thing is crumbling right before our eyes.

I noticed another wormhole recently between this choosing or not of friends or family. There’s some crossover happening. And I hope we’re all lucky enough that you know what I’m talking about, when you have those friends that wind up sliding over onto the family side over the years. It’s not legally binding, but you’d help them load a U-Haul on a weekend. That’s beyond pals.

Then you get traffic going the other direction, when you’re fortunate enough to be real good friends with people you’re related to. I’m pretty lucky that way. Which is great. Until you lose your good buddy, your uncle, your godfather and just a great guy all at once. Bob Rombach was all of those. Plus husband, brother, dad, grandfather and great-grandpa.

Man, could he laugh. A high-geared breakaway magnetic contagious whirlpooling one that dragged you in and pretty soon everyone’s wiping tears from laughing. Yeah, that was something.

I recognized this “You can choose your friends but not your family” error because of stomach aches. I remember getting one three years ago when a friend I would help load a U-Haul for learned he had cancer. And I just felt ill. Felt like I got stomped in the gut. Same deal lately with Uncle Bob. Accompanied by water leaking out my eyes at strange times.

This friend of mine is all better. Some chemotherapy, a Hail Mary surgery and some actual Hail Mary’s later, he went from stage-four to cancer-free. Amazing. I got to babysit his two boys last time I was over that way. Luke is very good at smashing Play-Doh sculptures. It’s a fun game.

So on one hand, I’ve got my buddy Mike I’ve known since always, and we rode sixteen-million, forty-three miles together on our BMX bikes growing up. At some point, around seven-million miles, we got to be pretty good buddies. When college rolled around, Mike and I both thought Southern Oregon State sounded good. Uncle Bob and Aunt Donna lived not far from campus and said if I wanted to save money, I could move in with them.

No college freshman in their right mind would move in with their aunt and uncle, but I didn’t look at it that way. I was moving in with friends. Who happened to have the same last name.

But I guess that old saying is right after all, because you don’t really choose. You just kind of meet those people that become both friend and family. There’s no deciding about it. So I’m off to say goodbye to a real good friend. And my uncle.