Family isn’t one thing; it’s everything, said Michael J. Fox in an interview, the kind every movie star gives at one time or another.

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching are your family,” wrote Ken Butcher.

I often read quotes like this, they are everywhere, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hollywood family movie ending without tear-filled forgiveness and reconciliation, always reconciliation.

The idea is that family is everything, more important than anything, even when the children are abandoned, abused, or forgotten.

One recent family movie won an Oscar.

It showed a mother pushing her daughter out of a speeding car, and in the end, the daughter was on the phone, forgiving her and trading promises of love and devotion.

Parents and families are forgiven everything, except for one thing: not reconciling at the end and not forgiving. After all, family is everything; nothing in life can ever be more important.

They are the people who must always take you in when the roof falls in.

Maria and I have seen endings and portrayals like this all of our lives together, and it often makes us wince and turn to one another in confusion and some sorrow.

We are isolated this way; our family stories do not and will not have happy endings. Family isn’t everything to us; sadly, it isn’t anything. We don’t see family on holidays or at any other time. They are not in our lives.

When our lives have gone to hell, as both of ours have, the family never stood by; they just flinched and disappeared. We never ran back to them.

We aren’t getting that family ending. I didn’t speak to either of my parents in the years before they died, and they were never present when I needed them, which was fine with me.

I never trusted them enough to need them.

I don’t like to speak for Maria, she has her own sad stories to tell about families, and she isn’t headed for that Happy Hollywood happy ending either.

This is not a happy or gloating or easy thing to say. I’m not proud of it. But I am glad about it.

We both did what we needed to do to survive, and that was to get away from our families. Neither of us has ever regretted it, although it has made us sad and sometimes disconnected from the wider world.

One blog reader said she loved us because our lives were off-center, which is one of the many reasons why – our families are not a part of our lives.

We both understand that we will get to a point in life where we won’t get those Hollywood endings, there won’t be a reconciliation, and there will be no one there to help or save us or help us except for the love, trust, and life we each helped give to one another and found in some other people.

It’s awful to lose one’s family, but finding and building another one is possible.

Every day, one of us looks to the other and says, “you are my family,” which is true. And we are everything to one another that we never got from our families. Maria, in particular, has made some wonderful friends. It isn’t so easy for me.

To my surprise, I have discovered that many of us out there have no families in our lives and don’t get that Hollywood ending or don’t say family is everything to us.

The holiday season brings this very much to mind. The family worship has already begun and will get worst by the day.

I have a daughter, and we are close. I love her, and she is family.

But it’s not the Hollywood family we see all the time on the tube; we live far apart and have separate lives.

But she is the only family I can say are in my life. I am grateful for that.

I haven’t spoken to my brother in years, and my sister hasn’t called me in memory. I call her once in a while to ensure she’s okay. She is.

When she broke her hip, I sent some money. That’s about it. I don’t want to speak to my brother ever again.

A shrink told me that when I realized I couldn’t be near my mother anymore, I had begun what she called a “Transition” from one life to another. It was necessary, she said; it was sad, but it was healthy.

She said it is a much more common occurrence than most people are led to believe. The “Transition” from mother to life is necessary for some people to live their own lives and find their purpose for living.

My life began when I got away from my family; only then could I heal and find the life I wanted. Maria and I were in the same boat when we met; we instantly became family to one another. Both of us are happier than we ever were around our families.

I believe her art blossomed when she made her Transition into the life she wanted, not that others wanted for her.

I didn’t know what love and happiness were until I left my family behind, and I realized they had left me much earlier.

In our culture, the family must pull together; it’s the only ending people will tolerate or pay to see and read. But often, it’s just a fairy tale.

. Nobody wants to see or stream a movie about broken or dysfunctional families and stay that way. The family story must always have a happy ending.

But as we are often reminded, Hollywood is not life. It is Hollywood.

I’ve come to see that we are not alone; we are a part of a family of people without family.

The people like us don’t like to talk about our families and don’t fit into the often sappy dimension portrayed of family life. You never hear from them or see them in the movies. When we have dinner with friends, our families never come up.

It’s almost a secret society.

Many of our family-less friends gather on holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas. They call themselves fellow orphans.

But you wouldn’t know they were there if you weren’t one of them.

We try to fulfill some of the holes left behind by all the warm and happy ideas about family.

In a sense, we are orphans, refugees, alone in the world except for one another and the friends we have made. They are essential; they mean a lot.

I write this with no joy or satisfaction; sometimes, my heart yearns for the family I lost and the very idea of family that is so important to “normal” people.

I want to say that the real Hell for me came when I was close to myself, and when I left my family, I found peace, love, joy, and meaning I never imagined. It’s never easy or pain-free, but it can be done. People caught in awful family situations, and miserable should know that.  Any therapist will tell you they are out there.

But my heart is also filled with joy and meaning for my true family now, which includes Maria, other off-center people, dogs, donkeys, and many people I have never met face to face. It’s a loyal and loving family. It’s my family.

The holiday season is the toughest for me, and I think, for Maria. This hot and unrelenting celebration of the family is all around us, everywhere we go or look.

I am never sure how to feel about this; the holiday season is a time of love, generosity, and healing for me. I wish it could have been different. I’m grateful I got away.

Maria and I are going off for a day right after Christmas to the place we honeymooned more than a decade ago.

We will celebrate with our small but loving family there, give thanks to each other and think about the crisis, mystery, and joy of life.