Ohana Means Family

While watching the series, Ted Lasso, with my husband the other evening, Ted’s words caught my attention: “I love our family… no matter what it looks like.”

Not being an avid Ted Lasso watcher, I stopped what I was doing and played those words over in my head. They tugged at some of the strings of my heart, as I reminisced with a bit of gladness and sadness on what family looks like to me. I admitted that it looked more and more different to what I’d ever envisioned. Yet, this is part of our journeys on this earth, it’s part of the unpredictability of living. It’s part of nature. And that can be a beautiful thing. To see life for what it is, to see family for what it truly looks like, and to embrace the mess, imperfection and chaos of it all. It means that we can appreciate the souls tied to ours, regardless of the circumstances.

Life happens, and there are many things within our control, but just as so, there are many things outside of that control. We bear scars that cannot always be seen at first glance, and through tragedy we learn the true value of what it means to be a family. We discover, quite unpleasantly, the ones who are for us, and the ones who are there for the pleasant days and never for the uncomfortable and ugly. Even though those worst moments of a person’s life are actually equally as important as the milestones and joys – if not more important – because both sorrow and joy are complementary to the fullness and richness of what it means to be human.

Through those moments though, you find yourself re-evaluating much of what you may have grown up hearing or believing. Blood is thicker than water? You can’t choose family? These are sayings we’ve heard and may have often accepted. But is that really true? There are these stereotypes or norms we have become accustomed to, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever really bought into them, especially not lately.

I had decided a long time ago to rather follow the mindset of: “We get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds” (Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams). And so I sat there for awhile, with Ted Lasso’s sentiment mulling over in my head as I reflected on the last three decades. I’ve seen strangers show more love than long-standing relationships. I’ve seen friends show up as family, and acquaintances seek to comfort and understand as if a 10-year bond was shared. I’ve seen family through law become closer than family through blood.

We don’t get to choose biology, but we do get to choose love.

Over the last few months, I often find myself thinking back to the childhood movie Lilo & Stitch. The well-known saying goes: “Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

And then I saw the faces of every single loved one closest to my heart. I named them one by one: my husband, our daughter, our parents, siblings, immediate family members, my mentor and confidant who I miss dearly, my best friends, and each and every pet we’ve called our babies. If life is a tapestry, then each of these loves are their own colour in my grand picture. They make life what it is: messy, genuine, true, and golden.

I visited the sum of my life’s years and smiled at how imperfect the journey has been. How the road has valleys and hilltops, cliffs and mountains, oceans and sinkholes. But the golden thread running through each and every year was these loved ones. My circle. My family – no matter what it looks like. No matter the past or present or future. Family is the sum of a whole lot of different faces. This family is ingrained into my history, they’re stamped onto my heart. Ah, and this family has grown. And we have lost. We have lost far too much. We have celebrated the joys, but oh how we’ve mourned the losses.

Because this life is hard. It is relentless. It throws you hurdles that leave you barely standing. But the thing we fight for the most? The people closest to us. We fight for them when they’re here, and we remember them when they’re not. That’s family. It’s not biology or law. It’s the work, time, tears, laughter, weeping, dancing, and effort that go into the ones we love and care about. And that family can look so different to the one we’re born into.

We do have a choice. Just like a plant can’t grow without sunlight or water, and a muscle cannot get stronger and defined without training, so are the relationships in our lives. They need investment, or they wither away. But nobody gets left behind or forgotten – not in the true sense of what we choose to define as our family. In this circle, every single one matters.

I pondered on this, with a broken yet enriched heart, grateful for all those I love deeply. The ones I’ve lost in this lifetime, the ones in different cities and countries, and the ones right here in the everyday.

Through tears, I smiled, thinking, “I love our family… no matter what it looks like.”