“God places the solitary in families,” comforting words from the Bible … families, by blood, by obligation, by necessity, by desire … and sometimes, if one is very lucky, by love. It is a word that implies solidity, a rock-solid foundation, a place to go home to … to grow out of … to grow away from, and yet to remember and hang onto … the echoes never leaving one's ears or one's heart, the memories carved like painted ivory, from a single tusk, delicately colored in brilliant hues, and softer ones, faded sometimes, so dim as to be almost forgotten … and yet never to be totally forgotten or left behind. The place where one begins, and hopes to end … the thing one works hard to build on one's own … the pieces like building blocks reaching high into the sky…. Family … what images that conjures … what memories … what dreams.