What defines family? Is it the people you grew up with, the people who raised you, the people who you can trace your heritage back to, or the people you find along your path through life? I don't think there is any one right or wrong definition for who is included in a person's family. It's all up to the individual to really say who is in their family. True, everyone has an immediate family, and an extended family beyone that, but those are only the people related to you. I believe family goes further and deeper than that.
When asked to define my family, I initially will start with my mom and dad, my brothers and sister, my aunts and uncles, my dozens of cousins, and my grandparents. But I don't necessarily like to stop there, I believe that my family consists of all those people who mean and have meant something to me, beyond a friend or aquaintance, throughout my life. I have some friends who I grew up with, just as close as siblings, whom I regard to be my psuedo-brothers and sister. It doesn't matter to me that we are not related, we are still family.
In my Tongan class a few weeks ago the teacher wrote the Tongan word for 'family', Famili, up on the board. A student in the class noticed how close the spelling was to our own enlgish word for family and asked why that was. Our teacher responded that intitally Tongan's didn't have a word for family, it was derived and adopted from the english language years later. We were told they didn't because they didn't really need a word for family in their culture. Family means so much to Tongans, and extended families and the like were so close, they really didn't have the need to define what a 'family' was, they all just knew. They had however, and still have, a word for 'kin', and that was enough.
I will be integrating myself back into a family when I go to Tonga. I will be living with a host family, listening to the parents as if they were my own, and fulfilling chores just like as I would back home. I am working on, right now, mentally preparing myself for the challenge and experiences that will come from living in a host family, from being part of something bigger than myself. It won't be easy, I'm sure, finding where I fit in. It's something that I can only really figure out once I'm in Tonga. It may not be easy but I'm sure it will be worth it. So what defines family? We define it.
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