By Patricia Gallagher Newberry
Enquirer contributor

Just last week - and some 2,000 years ago - a man from a faraway land joined his friends for what turned out to be his last supper.

They weren't related but they were, in essence, family.

Just last week, members of my church and maybe yours, gathered to remember that supper and the events that immediately followed.

We weren't all blood relations, either, but part of a family of faith.

Half a world away, in a country now decimated by war, the family of Iraq is torn, thousands dead and thousands more made homeless.

Back in this country, dozens of U.S. families are likewise wounded, mourning soldiers who will never return.

My own family and that of my husband, too, remain apart, spread across several states, separated by distance and different decisions.

I find, as the years pass, that I miss my own parents more than I did as a woman of 20. Are they well and happy in Arkansas, I wonder, and will they remain so as they advance in years?

I find myself regretting that the variant paths my siblings and I took in life put so many miles between us.

Community can help

I find myself craving communities where I feel comfort and acceptance: at work, with supportive colleagues and students; in my neighborhood, from friends and friendly neighbors; and in my community, in groups that welcome me.

And just as I worry - obsess even, at times - over rifts in my own family, I hurt when the extended families in my life are split.

When my church confirms drops in membership and dollars, my concerns for the future rise.

With friends, tensions, real or imagined, leave me uneasy until addressed and repaired.

The war in Iraq has jolted me into considering the value of family, whether real or metaphorical.

Like most Americans, I have been stunned by the images of Iraqi men, women and children fleeing their homes, their few possessions tucked under their arms or strapped on their backs.

I have been especially sobered by stories of families wrenched apart when American bullets find Iraqi civilians.

Last week, one of my Miami University students shared the story of Omar, told by the Observer of London. Omar, 15, became an orphan earlier this month when his family's vehicle failed to observe a U.S. checkpoint outside Baghdad and prompted a barrage of bullets from marines. The eight civilians killed in the shooting included Omar's mother and father, two brothers, a sister and an uncle. A baby brother named Ali survived, his face badly wounded.

A human face on tragedy

Omar's story, I responded to my student, puts a human face to the famous Stalin quote: "One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic." Only in this case, it's one death times six.

In Iraq, a family wiped out for failing - fearing? - to stop their car. In the United States, families equally traumatized as their soldiers die on foreign ground.

And closer to home, divisions in the families and communities within my small sphere.

Like all good Catholics, I pledged to "give up" something during the Lenten season. I chose yelling. I told the kids I was going to work on controlling my quick temper in an effort to teach them to hold their own tongues.

I didn't do very well most days. But even admitting that I yell too much had its effect, at least on me: I acknowledged that my behavior harms my family.

With the Easter story fresh in mind and the losses of the Iraqi war becoming more apparent , I think I'll carry on my pledge, however spotty my compliance.

I cannot heal the pain of thousands of Iraqis and Americans created by the war. I can have only modest impact on the conflicts in my community or family. The least I can do is work on the family relationships playing out daily in my own home.

E-mail newgal@marriedwchildren .com