Public school teachers in Long Island, New York, saved my life in the '70s. They were involved and invested and helpful. One took me into her family and loved me back to life. She taught me that love is not formed and families are not formed by blood. That love makes a family.
I think blood doesn't determine who your family is.
Blood relatives often have nothing to do with family, and similarly, family is about who you choose to make your life with.
Love and this close-knit family structure really helped to give me the confidence. To know that you have family to go back to is a help. It doesn't always happen biologically. Sometimes God gives you family in other forms, but I was very blessed. I have a very strong biological family.
Because I didn't have brothers, I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family, so I became one of them - but it was not my family.
I have a wife and child, and I guess that would constitute a family, and sometimes I watch shows where the people aren't related. And I don't get nervous, get the sweats, and have to run out of the room. I mean, I can handle it.
Where I come from, family’s defined as those who don’t screw you over a pay check. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they’ll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they’re your family.
