Family isn't just blood.
Family is not the relatives
That he'd see from time to time.
It is not the family that he hardly talked to.

Family is that people that he saw everyday,
who knew every mannerism,
what the lilt in his voice meant,
how he liked his Jim and Coke
and how we knew not to take his chair.

Family is the people there,
for every moment. 
For the birthdays, the parties, the Sunday dinners,
and for the deaths.

Family is not the people who sit at the front of the funeral,
telling the same story or two because they never spent much time with him.

Family is the people who were there for his life and stayed after his death,
after his funeral.

When the relatives went home,
and the "friends" stopp coming by,
it was the family,
our family,
who was there for each other.

Do not ever tell me
that "blood is thicker than water,"
because he may not have been my blood,
but he damn well should've been.

We are a family.

And nobody can say otherwise.