We are Family

Look after one another. Marvin J. Ashton said, “If we could look into each other’s hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.”Cape Town is a very adventurous and outdoor-oriented city, so my housemates and I would often go on hikes, exploring the endless, breathtaking beauty surrounding us. On our hikes and adventures we would quite literally and physically have to look out for one another. This was made easier and came more naturally as we grew to know each other better. We knew which of us were afraid of heights, which of us got cranky the earliest, which of us were more prone to wandering, which of us were athletic, which of us were determined, which of us were opinionated, which of us were stubborn. We knew each other, so we were able to comprehensively look after one another.When I first moved to Cape Town to study abroad, I was placed in a house full of people who were complete strangers to me; strangers with profoundly different experiences, wholly different upbringings, ways of life, ideas, opinions, passions, and dreams. I had not known them. I was unaware of what shaped them to be the people they are, the people that would be living with me, sharing a small space with me, for the next five months of my life. However, it did not take long before these people became my family, people I would deeply care for, people I would look out for. Soon enough, these were the people that I stood on the curb outside our house and cried with as we said, not our “goodbyes”, but our “see you laters”. We were the closest thing to a family that each of us had while being thousands of miles away from our actual families. We fought, we made up, we laughed, and cried together. We threatened to beat up anyone that hurt someone in our little family. We explored together. We experienced homesickness together and we helped each other adapt to an entirely different culture and an altogether different way of life. We helped each other process our emotions and experiences, and we leaned on one another for support. We opened up to one another, vulnerably exposed our hearts and souls to one another, and we trusted one another. As we continued to learn more about one another, we grew to selflessly and completely love one another. Throughout those five months, a group of complete strangers became a family.I still would do anything for any one of these people. But, I know that my family continues to expand. You see, in every season of our lives, we open ourselves to receiving more family. The people placed in our lives throughout the various bends, curves, ebbs, and flows are intentional. We are surrounded with distinct people for a reason, and if we allow ourselves to be open to these people, we continue to build our families. As we continue to receive new family members, new friends, new loved ones, our hearts grow more protective, more compassionate. We learn, then, that only when we truly open ourselves to knowing the people in our lives better, to learning their stories, inquiring of their pasts, listening to their desires and dreams, we equip ourselves to love them better. We see that the more we understand one another, the more territory we are able to explore of each other’s pasts, passions, desires, hopes and dreams, the more deeply and profoundly we are able to care for one another.As the end of my study abroad experience loomed nearer, I began to associate with the phrase, “Home is where the heart is.” More than a mere typography scribbled on a greeting card or a sentiment exposed through a nostalgic social media post, this phrase embodied everything I was feeling up to my departure. As I tried to make sense of my emotions, of leaving a place I had grown to love and had learned to call home, I came to realize that I was beginning to have many different homes. In all these homes, I had experiences that had shaped my life, I had grown in ways that I never expected, and I had learned to form families with the people around me. I began to realize that I might have different places that I would call home. I accepted the fact that my heart may forever be pulled in different directions. And, in all these different places that my heart would be drawn to, I would have families, people that I grew to trust and learned to adore. So, my home would not just be found in the places that my heart grew to love, but with the people that my heart related to; with various people that made up many different families I grew to adore.We have the endless opportunity to continue to grow our families, as long as we regularly open our hearts to one another and intentionally invest in learning one another’s stories. Our hearts can grow to love and adorn many different homes that house many different families in every season of life. As we come and go, wander and explore, may we continue to open our hearts to those around us. May we open our eyes to the beauty we see in one another. May we bravely, unapologetically, and vulnerably form many different families in many different places that we call home. And may we continue to learn from our families, grow with our families, and better protect, advocate for, sacrifice for, and selflessly love each family that we form.