Family

Initially I was going to write about the wonderful time I had at the Hilton hotel on Saturday night but something I saw on my facebook changed the direction of my thoughts.

Family...We all have family. Moms, Dads, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. Some of us even have stepbrothers and sisters, step moms and dads. Adopted siblings or parents. However you look at it, we've got some kind of family.

For me, my family are those persons who are related to me by blood. Those that are in my family tree. I come from a very large family. My great-grandfather, on my mom's side had 4 children, his father, my great-great gradfather had 7 children and my grandmother (my mom's mother) had 7 children. Now interestingly enough, I call all these persons my family. Some of them I know some I don't know. Some of my first cousins and even second cousins I talk to everyday, others if i hear them once a year it's a lot, some I may not have a conversation with in a couple years and others I hardly know. However, in my eyes they're all still family.

Now some of my really close friends are obviously closer to me than my own family. However, I cannot get rid of my family. Whether I choose to speak with them, send them greetings at the appropriate times during the year or simply ignore them, as some would say ''blood is blood''. I can choose to ignore my family or I can choose to embrace them. I choose to embrace mine, whether or not they welcome that embrace. The funny thing is that even when we ignore family in life, we are quick to recognise them in death. We go to their funerals; we might not have said two words to them while they were alive; we might have ignored all advances, chose to pretend the weren't family but as soon as there is a death we whole heartedly embrace them and extend to them the love that they can now no longer feel. The two things they say that bring families together...weddings and funerals. I've always been and will always continue to be a family person. I know that they are times when I will reach out to family and be rejected but I will continue to do so because that's who I am...welcome to the family!