According to ‘oxford dictionaries online’ a relative is defined as a person connected by blood or marriage and to be frank that is all we are. We don’t seem to know the values of being team players, supportive, protective, close etc. As J.K Rowling would have said “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.” Why do we constantly fight with one another? Belittle each other? Kick each other while they are already down? Why can’t we come together as one big happy family and make this thing work?

I’ve been around many families before, and as much as they would have disagreements one thing I find, is that the disagreements stays within the household.  You don’t find them sitting with one another and gossiping on another. How are we supposed to go forward if that’s all we do? To think you would sit with me now and gossip one family member and then sit with that very same member and gossip me. Where are we going? Though I may be the vilest member of this family (as you guys put it) and as much as you say he would be ashamed of me today, I can’t help but think he is also ashamed of each one of you as well. I knew him, you knew him too and we all know he was a family man, he loved us all and he always encouraged us to stick together. Now I’m homeless, not literally but I only knew a home when he was alive, now all I have is a place to rest my head, reassurance that I won’t get wet if it rains and food to eat. That’s as far as it goes.

We seem to forget what it is to nurture and instead we neglect one another as if we’re all just distant strangers. We’ve adopted this habit of helping strangers rather than our own flesh which leads me to wonder what we learnt from him. What did we learn? Because as much as he use to go all out to help others, he never left his own undone, in fact I like using this example, remember that faithful day in May? He died going to get mangoes for the kids. He didn’t have to go but he loved it and maybe the same way we as a family love giving but when it’s a case of strangers before our own kind its reasons for concern.

The older I get the more that I see he really loved this family and he did the best he could but all I hope is when I have my own family I would see more of him in me. There is no such thing as a "broken family." Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you. Maybe if we understand that the bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life then we’d begin to honor, support and be there for one another. Let’s be the driving force in on another’s life and not the force driving one another apart.

RIP Walter Knight- best great grandfather ever