Celena Mabry

 Family means a lot of different things to different people.  To me ‘family’ is anyone that I love.  See I grew up in what most people wouldn’t consider an ‘average’ family.  I was the first born.  In fact, I was an only child until I was almost 8 years old.  I wanted a big brother and younger siblings for as long as I could remember.  When my mother brought home my baby brother, I thought that was the greatest thing she ever brought home.  Sure as he got a little older he was a pain in the rear but I still loved him dearly. 

Then when I was 11 someone that worked with my daddy asked my mother to babysit a baby girl that was about 13 months old while they moved.  They never came back to get her so we adopted her.  Through that process, my parents were asked to consider taking in a ‘problem child’ as a foster child.  He became my big brother since he was 15 and I was 12.  My family also included my bestest friend in the world Alice and her family too, so in a lot of ways, my family was not what you might call the ‘typical family’ but it sure was full of love.  I think that’s why I don’t like those step this and half that phrases.  They are all just ‘family’.