#acceprance

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We’ve all been there. Growing up with a family, biological parents or otherwise. We consider those closest to us and most valuable in our lives to be our family. Our home. Our place to return to. But what if you took a step back and looked around at your true family. The real people who’ve been keeping you alive and providing for you and everyone else. The people who grow your food, mine the ore that built your home’s appliances, drill the oil that keeps you warm, clean the pipes that filter your crap, build the phones you so desperately cling to, build vehicles so you can explore the world, and everyone else doing every single small and big thing that impacts your life. All these people are your family. They’ve never met you. Most likely don’t know your name. And you don’t know theirs. Humanity is your family. What’s terrible is being someone who believes this and watching the present world. Imagine hearing the news of people’s deaths. In wars. In crimes. In hospitals. Every death you feel like you just lost a brother or a sister. Every discrimination and hateful comment a fight between your siblings that you want to stop. For a long time I wondered why I did not cry at my grandfather’s funeral. I thought I was a terrible person for not crying, for not falling down in a fit of mourning. But now I realize why I couldn’t cry. Why I wasn’t a mess inside myself. I had seen it hundreds of times. Every day. Nonstop. It wasn’t that I didn’t cry for my grandfather; I could not cry for just him. Not when the rest of my family was dying all around me. And still is. Now after all this, you may think embracing all of humanity as your family will bring nothing but pain. Wrong. For every negative there is a positive. Every achievement someone makes, you feel their joy. Every friendly rivalry an inspiration. Every good deed an act of sibling love. And I’ll tell you what. Pain has not made me cry nearly as much as all the good I’ve seen in the world. I’ve cried when children embrace their parent, years gone, feeling that sense of love that penetrates the soul. When you feel things like that, how can all of humanity not be your family? Yes, some of your family members do bad things. But like my parents told me: it isn’t your behavior we love: it’s you. And that will never change. 

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