I looked up the word family in a dictionary and found a list of biological definitions. After the list of biological definitions I also saw logical answers like "a group of people who share common interests". Where's the definition about love? Nowhere in the dictionary did I find that family is defined by love and, as far as my life's experiences go, family is all about love.
I visited my family in El Salvador for the first time in seven years. Seven years. So much happens in that amount of time, and yet so little seems to change. We were practically strangers, but I couldn't help feeling butterflies in my stomach when I was walking off the plane and smiling so big it hurt because I saw them anxiously waiting for me outside.
As time went on, I found that I was feeling more comfortable with them and conversations were running smoother. One night I looked around my grandmother's house and observed all my relatives interacting. I couldn't help but think that there is something deeper than just a biological connection with family. Sure, if we weren't biologically related we probably would never see each other, but there is something more. My aunts and uncle are the people my mom grew up with and my grandparents are the ones that brought her into this world and nurtured her until she became the woman my father married. What about my cousins? They were all born after my nuclear family had left to the US and we didn't watch them grow up and hear their first words. None of this family was there for my first birthday or for my high school graduation, and yet, I noticed that every aunt had a copy of my senior portrait hanging on their wall.
Some people say family is what you make it and others describe their friends as being "like a brother" or "like a sister". Some people have a family that's not biologically related to them at all and their biological family is composed of mere strangers.
I can't fully describe family, but I can say that there is a strong bond of love that comes along with that word and the moment we stop thinking of love as being the definition of family, is the moment our families fall apart and leave us alone. We weren't meant to be alone, as humans we were meant to love and that is why we have family.
