The true meaning of family

When I look at this picture, and I do often, to me it shows a happy family that seemed could never be broken. But in reality, most families are broken in one way, or the next; even if it is something hidden behind closed doors.

Growing up I remember my grandfather always trying instill in me, the importance of keeping our family business to ourselves.

“Nothing goes outside this family”, he would say every time we had a serious discussion. Our family took care of their own, the old ways, it’s just how things were done then.

Sometimes in the end when you look around the dinner table on sundays, it became quiet, less people attended these dinners, or dad’s famous barbecue’s and get togethers. I vastly remember 95% of the time it was family reunions that my family flocked to. When I was growing up, people knew what it meant to be a real family, especially in an italian household.

Our family would begin to abandon one another and keep to themselves. No more family dinners, or get togethers, no barbecues or family reunions. We were losing pieces of a family that had painted us as the black sheep, because we were free and adventurous; we were hippy’s. Well, my mother was the hippy and I was her flower child.

It wouldn’t be until I moved to Laconia New Hampshire, when I found out that family doesn’t always mean the one you are born to, but people that you surround yourself with, that deserve that title. The ones who are there through it all, both good and bad and never take you for granted, or treat you like a leper when they don’t agree with what you do, or say.

My home was always filled with my new family, and to this day, they will always be family no matter the distance or time.

I try to teach my children this, that you can’t always depend on your true blood family, but if you surround yourself with amazing people who care, who love you for who you are regardless of your past, then you have the one thing a lot of people lack; a good family that will last a lifetime.

Never allow yourself to become the black sheep as they call it, stand tall and show your so called family that your soul and heart can never be broken by them. Because you have, or can find something far better and meaningful; true friends and a worthy family.