Legally, two things define family: blood and marriage. To me, those are still superficial means of forming a group of people who love and support you unconditionally. You can be born into a "family" where no one supports, loves, or values you. But society will still call them your family. You can also be adopted into a family not related by blood, and be loved like no other. You can marry a person who thinks the world of you and wants to spend the rest of their life with you, yet not be accepted by the people he was born into. (This is not out of personal experience, just observation of the world around me.)
What I call my family is made up of many different people, some of whom I am not related to by blood or by marriage. Although my father's parents are both dead, I still have two sets of grandparents. I "adopted" a loving and caring older couple from my church as the other pair (or rather, they adopted me). And they have other "extraneous" children and grandchildren, because of their kind and wise nature. I never met my paternal grandparents, but my adopted ones are the definition of good grandparents. They have so influenced my life and are genuinely concerned about me. The impact of their care and love was so great that my husband and I had my adopted grandmother do our pre-marital counseling and officiate our wedding (luckily, she is licensed to do both).
I was born with four siblings, but I have so many more brothers and sisters than that. Blood family does bring a certain unique connection, but friends that you can call family to your heart are so precious. I value every one of them, and every one of them has made a special impact on my life. Schoolmates, co-workers, friends I've met through church, friends I met through other friends--I count each individual one as a positive addition to my life.
Everyone knows there are fathers who don't act like fathers, mothers who are the worst at mothering, brothers and sisters who could care less that you occupied the same uterus as they did at one time. So I don't confine my sense of family to blood or marriage. While I love my blood family, my personal family isn't restricted to just them. I think that gives me a better idea of what love is really all about.
