A Reader-Response Approach to Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ ‘Chosen Family’

Reading this poem made me a traveler of my own memories.

My best friend and I started reading poems to each other ever since college. Now that we are
pursuing our own career paths, we rarely have time for each other to just talk and dream for the future.
This great longing of mine to reconnect heightened since the pandemic started. Thankfully, I can talk to
her through video chat (an invention I’m most thankful for) and share poems with her again. When I came
across this poem and read it, I knew from the first line that it resonated with me and my best friend.
Chosen Family was the title and I thought, yes, my best friend is my chosen one.
This poem is also a reaffirmation of what we already know: that if we are lucky enough to find
our people, it is vital to hold onto them. One question that kept lingering in my mind was how do I hold
on to my friend who is far away? I guess the author was trying to say that there is no easy solution than
giving time to each other. No matter how far away, friends go through such laborious lengths just see each
other’s faces and hear each other’s voices.
While I was reading the poem, another thought that kept running through my mind was how
mundane things can be powerful with love in it. The author explained this through this line: When you
find your people, they’ll tell you to use any bathroom you want, work side-by-side together for long hours
in close quarters without any fear of being harmed… As I read this, I came to understand the comfort and
relief of having someone walk with you, protect you, and need you for who you are. This line triggered
memories of me going to my best friend’s house for a sleepover. She looked after me like I was her kid,
told me to use the bathroom she prepared to wash myself, offered me snacks to eat, comforted me when I
felt down, and stayed up late with me to finish my school works. I came to cherish every single moment I
spent with her no matter how mundane it was.
I also became emotional on how the poem talked about a friend that ‘throws the ball to you, offer
you their love song & say you need to listen to this track & dance even if I don’t know all the steps’. This
was what my best friend did the day we knew that work life was going to keep us apart for a while. After
graduation, I went back to my hometown in 2019 and we talked to each other online ever since. She
would send me quotes and songs she liked. She would ask me ‘if I remember and I’ll say yes until we
remember the days when we had all the time in the world.’
The last lines of the poem clearly told me the things I should do for my friend:
When they are trying to take themselves out of the world
lay your hands on them & call them yours & yours & yours.
As I read this line, I remembered how insecure she was of her appearance, her pimples, and her
workmates. Every time she says negative things about herself, I tell her things I like about her. I repeat
over and over again until she commits it to muscle memory. I thought to myself that I will never turn my
back against my friend. It is my turn to hold her unique presence in my safety pocket and tell her to never
forget that she always belonged and she always mattered.