family forms

The Oxford English Dictionary defines family as “a group of persons related to each other by blood or marriage.” Merriam-Webster defines the word as “a group of people related to each other” or “a person’s children.” Dictionary.com, as “a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.”

But none of these definitions encompass my understanding, my lived experience, my vast love of family.

By Oxford’s understanding of family, I have little of it. By Merriam-Webster’s understanding, it is ambiguous if I have any. Dictionary.com’s understanding comes the closest, giving me some family, but only as a ‘basic unit’. And yet I am someone who considers herself overwhelmingly fortunate to have so many people in her life to call family.

Surely, my family fits no standardized definition. I write of family often. I talk of family often. I think of family often.

So what do I mean by this?

In my room in my house in Kalamazoo, I have two hand-drawn trees on either side of my mirror, and surrounding each tree are pictures. When I face my mirror, to my right is a tree with one of my most treasured Mary Oliver quotes, from In Blackwater Woods, which informs much of how I live my life. Surrounding the tree are pictures of many of the Kenyan children with whom I have worked, who I have loved, who I hold so dear. On the other side of my mirror, to my left, is a tree of life. Surrounding this tree are pictures all of my family forms spread all around the world. When I look in my mirror, I see myself surrounded by the two parts of myself I hold most important: Kenya and my family.

My family is my mama and my baba, those whose love gave me life, those whose parenting gave me character, those whose wisdom gave me guidance. My family is my brother and my sister, those with whom I share no blood but with whom I was introduced to the world, with whom I was educated, with whom I played Britney Spears karaoke, with whom I dabbled in mischief, with whom I grew up, with whom I have always been a sibling. My family is my grandpa, my grandma, my grandma Louise, my Papa, who are no longer here and with whom I was only given limited time, but whom I feel within life always in the love, values, and stories passed to me. My family is my cousins, aunts, and uncles, my Grandma and my Grandpa Don, my neph-in, of blood and of marriage and of distant, not-so-sure-relation, who provide laughter and raucous reunions and memories of dress-up games, my first taste of alcohol, weddings, funerals, and limitless care

As I look to my family tree aside me in the mirror, they are there, with zigzagging, squiggly, diagonal lines connected us all to one another. But there are others on that tree, too.

My family is my Kenyan sister who belts folk songs with me off-key and on repeat, who has memorized The Office, who taught me how to do laundry like a true Kenyan, who giggles with me like no time has passed even when there are years between meeting, whose heart is big enough wrestle with the big questions alongside me. My family is my British brother who stays and who keeps me on my toes, keeps me grateful, keeps me kind, keeps me considering, and keeps me laughing. My family is my three housemates, who never shy away from a discussion, who never shy away from a sassy comeback, never shy away from a long dinner at the table, never shy away from sincere and loving honesty, never shy away from the hard and true work of community, of relationship. My family is la famille Sarr, who for the six months I was Callie Daba Sarr, shared with me their ever-growing home, their love of dancing and a good party, their joy and their laughter, and who I am sure will once again welcome me warmly to their table if ever I am to return. My family is my surrogate grandparents, who define with their daily lives the word ‘generosity’, who share in my desire to love the world, whose support is unwavering. My family is Herron High School and all those who contributed to its wonderful weirdness who show me still to not look past differences, but to look warmly within them. My family is mtoto yangu, Moses who taught me of hope, of giving one’s heart, of letting go and forever holding. My family is my Kenyan mama and baba, Mama Francisca, my family is watoto wa Neema, my family is children I have loved, my family is the Umoja Project and the community of Chulaimbo, and so many more in that living land of red dirt, commitment, love, sacrifice, withstanding, walking, giving, struggling, continuing, of that which made and makes me who I am, of that which pushes me to be my best self, of that which is complexly beautiful.

They are all my family, in its many forms.

And at this point in my life, a point in which I intend to live every day embodying family, a point in which I feel such an overflowing of gratitude for the family of my life, a point in which I look at myself in the mirror and see myself surrounded by family, I understand it to be this: family is those whose well-being is bound up in my own. Family is those who I take care of by taking care of myself. Family is those who take care of me through my taking care of them.

And this is lived out and seen in big and in small ways. And it is different with each of my family forms.

Family is those who have cared for me since birth and whom I will care for until death, and family is those with whom my life only briefly travelled but with whom my wellbeing was no less tied. Family is those who take care of me, and I of them, in our daily lives lived side by side, and family is those whose lives are far away from mine and whose hugs are separated by many months and miles but for and from whom I have learned presence can span distance. Family is those who are my emergency medical contacts and my emergency emotional, philosophical, spiritual, educational contacts, and family is those whose voices I will not hear again but who I will always hold. Family is those of blood, of marriage, of adoption, of serendipity, of community, of difference, of nationality, of travel, of life lived together in all sorts of ways.

My family relationships are not uniform, they are varied in depth and width and length and origin and kind and I do not mean to call them all the same, for that would not honor each in its specific form. Rather, these are those human beings whose well being in some way is tied to my own and so they are family to me.

By Oxford’s understanding of family, I have little of it. By Merriam-Webster’s understanding, it is ambiguous if I have any. Dictionary.com’s understanding comes the closest, giving me some family, but only as a ‘basic unit’. And yet I am someone who considers herself overwhelmingly fortunate to have so many people in her life to call family.

So what do I mean by this?

My surrogate grandfather once said to me: isn’t it such a wonderful thing to find you just keep collecting family along the journey?

My response to that question then, now, always: surely, it is.

That is what I mean by this.

And you? When you write and talk and think of family, what do you mean by this?