To me, family is family. I don’t care if you are my cousin or my fifth cousin. You are still my family. I am kind of confused about something. Let’s say you have an aunt that gets remarried to a man but who has a child with her first husband. Who is your uncle, would the first person become your ex uncle? It is really confusing to me. I think that they are both your uncle, because one is my cousin’s father and the other is my aunt’s husband. I would consider my cousin’s dad more of my uncle because they are my cousin’s dad. Yeah I just confused myself too. Of course most of the time the ex-husband or ex-wife are the ones that are usually the ones that don’t come to family functions because that could be kind of awkward. I know I will never go to a family function for my ex’s family and that is fine with me. But, then I am thinking about who are these people. I mean are you really supposed to forget that you spent a huge chunk of your life with those people. I understand when you divorce someone you divorce their family in a sense. Those bonds are forced to be broken. It is a fact of life. It is just something that is understood. I personally think that it sucks. I was really close to my ex-husband’s aunt. I often think about her, if she is doing well. She has a horrible disease and I loved her, I still do. I know that I will never have a hug from her, and that makes me want to cry.
I still consider those exes who are the parents of my cousins as my aunts and uncles. I am just odd I guess. I still love them. One of them I used to see all the time at family things. My family is different though. We are the type of family that would accept you if you were legally a member or not. I love that about us. I try to include them if I can. I think that life is too short, to exclude others. I love whole heartedly. I can’t just forget about someone like they never existed. When my Grandma Rose passed away, my cousin’s ex-wife came to the funeral. I could tell she felt kind of out of place when she went around hugging everyone in my family. She said I’m sorry for your loss, and I replied I am sorry about yours too. I knew that she spent a lot of time with my grandma, my grandma loved her. I think that I took her by surprise when I said that. I truly feel that it was her loss as well. My aunt Mary came to the funeral as well. She was married to my uncle before he passed away; I hadn’t seen her probably since my uncle’s funeral. That wasn’t really weird for me either. I knew my grandma loved her too. Family is so weird sometimes.
Then I think about those who you call aunt and uncle who aren’t even related to at all. Those are usually your parents’ friends that you have known for almost or all your life. It is more an honorary title. Then you have your godparents if you are catholic. Even though, it seems like everyone has godparents these days, catholic or not. You have sisters and brothers that are not even related to you but you just love them that much and you become so close that the barrier of friends and family gets broken down and you are just family. Those are the best kind of friends to have. I love my friends unconditionally as I do my family. I love what Gibbs on NCIS said a few weeks ago about family. He said Family is more than just DNA it’s about people who care and take care of each other. I agree whole heartedly. It truly is not about DNA or marriage or anything but just that, people who care and take care of each other. I just can’t turn my back on people who I have cared about in the past. I just can’t. It is not who I am, it is not how I was raised. I am here for those, even if they were not there for me. Someday you never know who might be there for you.
