Family. I always thought family was two parents and their kids, that it had something to do with sharing blood, that it was the people you semi awkwardly sit around with at Christmas. I am starting to learn that family has nothing to do with those things, that family is magnificently bigger than that.
I live a couple hundred miles away from my parents, my brother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I think it is precisely because of this that I have learned what family truly is. Family is the people who are there for you right when you need them, the people who no matter time of the night it is will wake up to talk to you or be with you. Family is the people who drive you to the airport even though its out of the way, the people you share meals with. Family is the people who know the daily going ons in your life. Family is the people who when everything else in the world seems upside down help you to understand up from down because they are right beside you, loving you, caring about you.
You see I haven’t lived near my parents or brother for 6 years yet I have family right here in Indianapolis. My family is the people who are there for me after a hard day at work, who help me when I have car trouble, who come to my house when I am alone and scared, who I laugh with, and who I know I could call at any moment if I really needed them and they would be there in a heartbeat. We do not share DNA yet they are a beautiful family to me and I am so grateful to have them.
I think we often pigeon hole the word family as if it has to fit a certain definition, we’re afraid to look outside the box, the thing is, often exactly what we need is right outside of the box. We spend so much time talking about what our family isn’t, how they hurt us, and their shortcomings and we miss our present blessing, we miss the fact that our current family is probably the people we’re standing there complaining to. I’m not saying that parents and siblings aren’t family but I’m saying its just so much bigger than that! I’ve been blessed with people around me who are able to fill in the areas that my parents and sibling weren’t able to, to compliment it, and to presently be with me. I’ve been extremely blessed to have people who have only known me a few months yet will do the same things for me my parents would. Our blood related family are not all we have we must continue to open our eyes to the other family members we are being blessed with.
