Three years ago I moved away from my hometown, a place where my last name “Minor” was an identifier that meant basically the entire town knew someone in my family, and I found it hard to describe to friends in Ohio exactly who my family was. Mind you, we typically have 70+ biological family members at Thanksgiving and despite this, we know basically everything about everyone. However, when I think of who is listed as one of my emergency contacts or who I constantly mention to my friends, that list of seventy grows. I realized that to not consider my non-Minor family friend “Casey” a sibling or family based on blood would be an inaccurate representation of our relationship.
To simply use the term “family friend” would be insufficient in explaining her role in my life. She came into my life when I was around eight years old and was someone I saw weekly up until I packed my bags for Ohio. Ironically, she was also the person who helped me pack those bags. Casey was at every field hockey game, cheering me on, regardless of how hot it was or whether or not she had better things to do. The number of times she took me to doctor’s appointments, bought me food or signed me out of school senior year is too many to count.
There are often days where I cannot wait until the next holiday so that I can go home and hang out with Casey as soon as I get back, despite the fact that I know dang well I am going to see her at nearly every celebration. There really are no differences between the relationship that I have with her and with my own biological brother.
Both of them have wanted to meet any guy that I might be dating. They are not afraid to tell me what they think of said individual and have very strong opinions on who makes the cut. The same as I would strongly consider if I should continue to have that person in my life if my brother does not like someone, Casey’s opinion matters equally. The same thing goes for any life decision that I make or ask their opinion on. At times, they know me better than I know myself. And they are not afraid to remind me of that.
Casey has been and will continue to be there for every important milestone in my life. Whether that be graduations, moves or changes to our family structure. Therefore, it only makes sense to introduce Casey as my sister being that there is no other word in the English language to identify an individual who would fly across the country just for a quick visit, or defend my youthful shenanigans, yet is not family.
Image Credits: Feature, Margo Minor