I would think it’s easy to sketch colorful imaginations of what a perfect family looks like:
A loving mom, caring dad, annoying siblings and the family dog that somehow never gets in trouble.
Wait, I’m sorry, I was lost in my imagination again.
Reality snaps me out of this trance to a rude awakening.
Flashback:
It’s 7 am, I have no clue where I am;
Just a clueless little boy straddling these green steps,
Skinny legs holding up this ragged body with an oversized head that somehow fits on top…
Not forgetting my Johnny Tear Boy.
What was family to someone who knew not what family was, even if he were handed one on a silver platter?
Just wait, I’ll tell you:
Family for me was the first time I saw grandma’s face, the relief and calm I felt wash over me when her eyes set on me,
Family was the respect I had and security I felt in the midst of grandad’s aura.
Family was the fuss and fights, the loud arguments and subtle complaints,
Family was the comfort found in each other when nothing was left, the assurance that together we had everything and that’s all that matters.
Fast forward,
Family was the emptiness I felt when he left,
The excruciation and agony she endured those dark nights when loneliness would remind her of him and how much she missed him, and how she cried endlessly till sleep came to give her respite – but just for a moment.
Family was us, she and I, picking up the broken pieces of our hearts,
Stitching them together with renewed hope, hope that all of these trials were testaments of the joy that lay ahead.
A moment of silence, for the joy that wasn’t to be.
Family for me was the part of me that died the evening she let go of her last breath;
Her fragile hands, relinquishing what little life she had left as she passed over in my arms.
If only cancer could have seen what it had done.
Family is the realization of what was given and taken by the time this boy became a man,
Family is the memories that live on inside,
Like a knife jagged in my heart,
What gives me pain also gives me hope.
Family for me is the advent of the ones yet to come,
The moments not yet experienced,
And the fulfilling of a joy not yet known.
Family is the peace found in the delight of others,
The love shared,
The warm thoughts embraced,
The memories cherished.
This is what family looks like to a boy who once stood unbeknownst at family’s doorstep,
And the man who now remembers everything it felt like,
Hoping that family is felt everywhere he goes by all,
Even as he plants the seeds of a family he yet doesn’t have, but holds close.
Authored by: Joshua L. Alston
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Family for me is the fulfillment I feel when my mother says “I love you”… when my little siblings say “thank you”.
Family for me is everything.
Always a good read Joshua.