The Mad Minstrel

I suppose if you want to be an ass, you could live by the literal meaning of biological family groupings but you don’t want to be that guy, do you? Nah, I didn’t think so. No, these days family means so much more than a bit of nucleotides and I think the future of families will continue to evolve and grow to be whatever the hell we want or even need it to be.

Take me, for example. My family is as mixed and varied as the crayons in a box. We have a biological thread in there somewhere, but it’s not what binds us together. No, I decided what family would mean to me when I was twelve years old and literally dying in a hospital bed. My mom called my biological father and put him on the phone with me. I’ll never forget his words.

“You don’t like, want me to come or anything, do you?”

I turned and looked at my “step-dad”, who was sleeping in a cramped hospital chair with a line of drool snaking down his chin…

“No, I don’t need you.” I handed the phone back to my mom and that was that.

I met my “step dad” when I was eight years old and he’s was the epitome of a dad joke from day one- but I didn’t really understand that he was MY dad until that hospital stay. He worked, he drove hours back and forth, he read me Dr. Seuss books, and he was there. He’s still there.

 As for the other guy, *shrugs* who needs him?

Right about now you might be thinking, sure, marriages and divorces bring people together all the time, it’s nothing special, and if that were it you might be right but no; my aunts and uncles, my siblings, my dad, none of them are related by blood- we just decided, in moments much like the one above, that we belonged together. Because let’s face it, you have to have people.

It doesn’t matter what you call them, Friends, Besties, Brothers, Second Mothers… As long as you all know the truth, that you are each other’s people. Family is whomever your heart decides you cannot live without, it’s the people you let in that don’t run away in terror, and the people you wouldn’t trade for all the world. And if you haven’t found your family yet, that’s okay, these things take time. But I know… I know it as sure as I know my own name, they’re out there. Hell, my parents are still taking in strays.

Image Credit: Bessi from Pixabay