It is funny how the word family always takes on new meanings. The word family has become so fluid and applicable to any new situation a person might experience. We run through life meeting people, important and less... but then somehow we always manage to create this thing called family. Maybe there isn't a mother or a brother or a cousin, but we have taken this word to mean so much more. Sometimes even the traditional family loses the right to the definition of family.
There's the families that we make for ourselves when we need to, and the struggle that appears when family becomes default and not anything more than just a meal and a bed. Or a family that listens to you when you are feeling alone or excited or needy or silly, or a family that you have never met but just speaks a familiar language (Hebrew, perhaps, in the middle of Ukraine).
The word family will again take on a totally new meaning in three weeks time when I am sworn in as part of Peace Corps Ukraine. My family will be volunteers, other teachers, PC faculty, locals and even my future students. And probably a few other unknowns.
Fortunately, this experience (so far) has allowed me to meet interesting people that not only I can call my friends, but few have already become family. I have been living all day everyday with the same four people, and then at least once a week I interact with another five. This family is 9 strong, and I am happy to say that they are mine.
Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! I hope that you and your family, whoever they are, enjoyed this holiday. I can say that mine surely did in our own very special way.
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