“Ohana means family. Family means no one is left behind - or forgotten."
Lilo from Lilo & Stitch
I used to write a detailed account of my life on all of my websites but those days are long gone. All of those sites have been taken down and in many ways my life has become a little bit more personal than ever before. I think I did it to justify myself and who I was, to help people understand me better, but I don’t feel the need to tell the world my story anymore… at least not so openly; there is a time and place for everything.
I am writing this because, consciously or not, I tend to put quotes around the world “family” when I write and a few people have asked me about it so I will attempt to explain without going into too much detail.
Basically, the dictionary definition of "family" is as follows: 1. a group of blood relatives, especially parents and their children; 2. a group of persons sharing common ancestry; 3. a group of individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption. While all of these may be true, I feel that there are many more variations to the word and that this definition is far from complete! Personally, I do not necessarily consider those that I share my blood or my ancestry with as being my “family”. Yes, I can associate the titles of “mother”, “father”, “grandparent” and such to each person in my bloodline, but I consider very few of them to actually play their defined roles in my life. I hardly know the majority of my “family” members, and of those that I do the connections are mostly lost, forgotten or betrayed.
There’s an old saying that goes: “You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family” and I disagree. Many of my closest friends ARE “family” to me and I do not feel that a “family” should be based solely on a luck of the draw bloodline. They should be the people that I feel connected to, supported, loved, and nurtured by, and those that I truly care about. Some people get lucky… they cherish their bloodline, ancestry, and those who make up their “family”; but, not everyone can be so fortunate.
That being said, I do consider myself to be pretty lucky though because every person that I consider to be MY “family” is truly special to me and that is what I feel is most important!
