Who is my family...

Earlier this afternoon I got a call from my one and only BIL (brother-in-law for those not in the know!).  I wondered to what I owed this wonderful pleasure (Tobes often phones me to quell his boredom in one fashion or another)...and true as Bob - he was bored!  Carly was driving and Tobes was in the passenger seat...bored, bored, bored (his favourite saying!).  They are en route for a weekend away - Mom, Dad and two kids (Daisy and Digby the most loved Labradors in the world!).  Now Tobes has some of the most fabulous euphemisms in the world (most of you will know that after a night on the town he will inevitably be "hanging like dogs balls"!) and of course they came rolling off the tongue (some of which shall not be repeated in as public a space as my blog!).  Needless to say as they continued talking about how they were missing me, not coming over to see me [boo :( ] and that White Trash Sundays (WTS) were just not the same without me anymore (primarily as I normally brought the food), I felt my heart getting sore.  Sore as in, "I-am-missing-out-on-the-fun-parts" heartsore.  I love my family.  I love my home.  I love my Africa.  I love the craziness of life in Africa.  And I am in London.  Insanity prevails!

So - getting off the phone, I googled.... "What is family?" (don't ask why - that in itself is an entire blog on its own!) and it popped up the following definition:

•  A group consisting of parents and children living together in a household (ok - makes sense!)
• A group of people related to one another by blood or marriage (doh!)
• The children of a person or couple (I thought those were your kids?)
• A person or people related to one and so to be treated with a special loyalty or intimacy (mmm - intimacy within families - incest??? huh?)
• A group of people united in criminal activity (well yes - that is definitely what me and my family get up to each weekend!)
• A principal taxonomic category that ranks above genus and below order, usually ending in -idae (in zoology) or -aceae (in botany) (ok - you lost me here Google!!)
• A group of objects united by a significant shared characteristic (as in - we are all right handed - what does significant mean?)
• A group of curves or surfaces obtained by varying the value of a constant in the equation generating them (holy hell - someone explain????)
• All the descendants of a common ancestor (so does that mean everyone in the world is ultimately related??)
• A race or group of peoples from a common stock (mmm - i-chicken stock???)
• All the languages ultimately derived from a particular early language, regarded as a group (???)

I read each of these definitions - some of them several times (Taxonomy - WTF???) and then decided that none of them actually explained why I had felt heartsore on the phone.  They were words without meaning.  Words without feeling. 

So - this is what family (blood relatives, mates, extended homies, siblings, parents, you name it - all the people in my life are my family!) means to me and why I miss them so much every day...

kindness, gentleness, laughter, smiles, silliness, dumb moments, hugs, keeping each other from boredom, longing for the fun times, being appreciated, crazy antics, loyalty, dedication, follow through....

The list could go on forever, but the meaning stays the same.  No matter the distance, no matter the time zones, family is as family does and I miss my family!

Have a fun, fantastic, family-filled fiesta of a weekend and ask yourself - what is your definition of family???

Love you xxxx