Protect Me 18+✔️

Chapter 40 Family✔️

Ten Months Later

I walk through our home looking at all of the work we have done, everything we did to make this place "ours," and I can't help but smile remembering how different it started out.

We built on three extra bedrooms and an additional bath, and we have plans to use one of the rooms as a library. It turns out Drew is an even bigger reader than I am, and I was right about my V.C. Andrews theory. But other than that, we kept things mostly the same with the house, other than updating and modernizing it to suit our taste a bit more.

Outside, thanks to a tremendous amount of help from Ms. Debbie, we added several flowerbeds, and Drew keeps joking that six months from now we will have more plants than she does.
Construction is already well underway on River's place, which is being built next door, and the renovations are finally finished here.

We had a few acres of land cleared off to make it possible, and it will be great to have him so close permanently.

And I know he is anxious to get into his own place. To him, this is an even more meaningful moment and milestone than it had been for Drew and me.
The truth is that he could have left; he could have found a way years ago to leave home, but he didn't, and though he would never say it out loud, I know he stayed for me.

I look at them, River and Drew, sitting and laughing on the couch, their feet kicked up on the table, watching football and yelling at the TV, and I think about Marvin's last words to me.
"You can't do this; we are your FAMILY."

Family. Such an interesting and complicated word.

What is it?

Look it up in a dictionary.

Define it.

fam·i·ly /ˈfam(ə)lē/ noun noun: family; plural noun: families Protect Me
1. a group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit.
"the family lived in a large house with a lot of land"

a group of people related to one another by blood or
marriage.
"friends and family can provide support"

the children of a person or couple.
"she has the sole responsibility for a large family

INFORMAL
a group of people united in criminal activity.
all the descendants of a common ancestor.
"the house has been owned by the same family for 300 years" a race or group of peoples from a common stock.

a group of related things.
"all manuscripts that share this reading constitute a family"

BIOLOGY

a principal taxonomic category that ranks above genus
and below order, usually ending in -idae (in zoology) or -aceae (in botany).
"the cabbage family"

all the languages ultimately derived from a particular
early language, regarded as a group.
"the Austronesian language family"

MATHEMATICS

a group of curves or surfaces obtained by varying the
value of a constant in the equation generating them.

adjective adjective: family designed to be suitable for children as well as adults.

"a family newspaper

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The truth is, family can mean so many things, differing vastly depending on who you ask.

But now, let me tell you what family means to me.

Family is the group of people who are there for you, regardless of whether or not they can get anything in return.
They are the people like Bo Howard, who knows no strangers and tells you old stories they have already told a hundred times with the same enthusiasm as the first. They give you advice and remodeling tips, as well as offers for their free labor, as you grocery shop, and are there with you to celebrate those little victories.

They are people like Ms. Debbie Smith who take you in, loving you unconditionally despite what drama you may bring to their lives. They bring you plants and homemade casseroles and offer to help you with anything, and I do mean anything.

Family is made up of people like River, who will love you forever and without conditions. Who are gentle enough to sing you to sleep when you are sad or upset, but who are strong and so ready and willing to give up everything they have or have ever known for what is right and to keep you safe.

And family is people like Drew, who will wipe and kiss away your tears, dress you, and go above and beyond, risking their own lives to protect yours, all while making you feel like the strongest person in the world, even when you are both falling apart.

They are people who love you. People who respect you. People who are there for you and will care for you despite whatever flaws you may have. No matter how hurt, how broken, or how damaged you are-or that they are-they are there, always.

Family has nothing to do with blood, time, genetics, or any of that other bullshit. Family is those people in your life like Bo, Debbie, River, and Drew.
Solid. Unwavering. Through the good times and the bad, the blood, the smiles, and the tears, always without question, there. That is family.

And I am so eternally grateful for mine.