I was just setting here thinking about some things, and the thought about what makes people family came into my mind. There was a time when it was easy mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents made family. As I grow older I have come to realize it is not always blood that make a family. True families center on love, trust, respect, and compassion for one another. I have a few friends in my real life that are more reliable then some of my blood family. Even though these friends are not blood I consider them family. My one friends grand daughter calls me Aunt Jane. :) She came up with that herself. I never told her to do it, but I do not top her either. Just like I did not correct the nurse at the hospital one late night when she called her grandma my daughter. We just looked at each other and smiled, because that is how I feel about her like she is the daughter I never had. No real daughter could be as good to a parent as she and her whole family have been to me over the years.
One time when my nephew was little he had to draw a picture of his family for school. It had an extra person in it. His mom asked him who it was. He said it was his sister. He had no real sister, so his mom said who? He turned and pointed to his aunt that was born between him and his older brother in age. The ironic thing is about 8 years later it became true. His grand parents died and his grandpa left his youngest child to his daughter and my brother to raise. So she became like his real sister after all. I can see why he got confused in the beginning. My sister-in-law always wanted a daughter, and never got one, so she would go up to her parent's house and take her baby sister to her house all the time. My sister-in-law always loved kids.
I remember one time before she and my brother were married we talked her into playing ball with us in the rain, and she had a tooth ache at the time. My brother told my mom she had a tooth ache and she made us all get in out of the rain. She would have stayed in the rain even though she had a tooth ache to make me and my little brother happy, if mom had not made her get out of the rain.
Now a days family can be anything that your heart says it is. Today's families can have 2 of the same sex parents. Two parents from different countries. Children in all sizes, shapes, colors, and nationalities. One could walk down the street with a rainbow made of kids you adored and no one will even look twice.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT FAMILY IS: That you love them and they love you, everything else is easy after that.
