An adult cousin of mine developed rheumatic fever many years ago. With financial resources dwindling, his wife drove him and their two little girls back to her mother’s farmhouse in Tennessee, where she had grown up. Her three brothers were supportive. They stayed until my cousin recovered. He resumed his livelihood, and the family returned to a normal lifestyle.

Home, the saying goes, is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

This homespun saying has never been true of all homes, of course. Some families experience rifts that separate them. However, a great many of us head home to family when trouble strikes: death of a spouse, illness, divorce, financial reverses.

What will happen as families have fewer and fewer members? What happens after young adulthood when parents die or become incapacitated? More families have only one child. What happens when we do not have brothers, sisters, or cousins to lean on in hard times?

The lack of brothers and sisters, of kin, may leave us short of homes to take us in when trouble strikes. We will need to develop communities that support members during those times, not only physically but emotionally as well.