Family, not only by blood

2026-02-16 - 22:07

Today is Family Day in Ontario. It’s a relatively new addition to the calendar, one that, if I’m being completely honest, I never quite understood. A statutory reminder to spend time with the people who are supposed to matter most to you always felt a bit redundant, almost forced. I wasn’t supposed to be here this Family Day, but here I am, typing away from the waiting room of the cardiology department of one of the best hospitals in Toronto. My laptop is propped up on a narrow counter and, for a moment, if I ignore the hum of the fluorescent lights above my head and imagine my dog at my feet, it almost feels like my standing desk back home. Home, now, is Yerevan, of course and, just last week, I was there, sick in bed with a stubborn cold that had incapacitated me in the most annoying way. I had called my mother, who was several time zones away, to complain, half looking for sympathy, half performing the small rituals of distance that keep you virtually tethered to family when you live far away. And then, in the span of a sentence, the conversation changed... There are moments when life narrows itself into a single, unmistakable instruction. No ambiguity, no space for interpretation. A family emergency, the kind that turns an ordinary phone call into something else entirely and, suddenly, your body is already moving ahead of your thoughts. Step one: Hang up. Step two: Open the browser. Step three: Search flights. Step four: Book the next flight to Toronto. What surprised me wasn’t the decision; that part was obvious. What struck me was the way I moved through it. I think of myself as an emotional person, someone who feels things fully, sometimes to a fault. But in that moment, there was no spiral, no overthinking: just action, almost mechanical. I booked the ticket, packed without really registering what I was putting into my bag, and got into a cab headed to the airport at an ungodly hour, when the city was still asleep. Between Yerevan and Doha, I stayed in that same state: emotionless, functional, almost robotic. I had promised my mother I would call when I landed at the layover point, and I did. We exchanged the usual things first: the reassurances, the doctor’s updates. And then, she began to talk about the messages, the calls, the visits. About how quickly people had shown up. Not publicly nor performatively. Just there. Family, yes. But also friends. And then, the broader circle: members of the Armenian community of Toronto, which has always had this stubborn way of pulling together when it matters. News travels differently in our communities. It doesn’t need amplification; there was no social media post to announce the emergency. It moves through something older. She told me how supported and held she felt during such a vulnerable time. And then, she said something simple: That we’re lucky; lucky to belong to something that extends beyond our immediate family. A kind of second layer of belonging. A family not defined strictly by blood, but by proximity, by history, by a shared understanding that doesn’t always need to be explained. That’s when whatever I had been holding back gave way, and I broke down. Somewhere in that airport, between gates and announcements, I felt it all arrive at once. Not just fear, or worry, or exhaustion, but recognition. That distance, for all its weight, is not the same as absence. I’ve spent the last few years building a life in Armenia with my partner, a life that feels intentional and rooted. It’s where our days unfold, where our habits have settled. It’s the place I now refer to, without hesitation, as home. But standing here, in the city where I was born, surrounded by the people who formed me, it becomes impossible to pretend that the word ‘home’ can be contained so neatly. Toronto is not a past life; it’s still here, intact, waiting for me in ways that are both comforting and disorienting. And maybe that’s the point. We spend so much time trying to define these things cleanly. Homeland. Diaspora. Community. Belonging. We draw lines and assign labels, trying to organize something that resists being organized. But moments like this ignore all of that. They don’t ask where you live or where you’ve chosen to anchor your future. They reduce everything to something simpler. They ask the simpler questions, like ‘Where do you go when it matters?’ ‘Who is there when you arrive?’ ‘What is family?’ Family Day, as a concept, still feels a bit strange to me. The idea that we need to set aside a day for it can feel, at first glance, like an admission that the rest of the year isn’t doing the job. But maybe that’s too cynical. Maybe the point isn’t that we forget, but that we need reminders anyway. Not because the connection isn’t there, but because life has a way of dulling our awareness of it. Routine, distance, work, ambition, all the small but necessary things that fill our days, can quietly push those connections into the background. And it’s not only blood that gets pushed there — community does, too. Until you need it, and it is suddenly there again: the calls, the visits, the way people show up and stay, the realization that family is sometimes larger than the people you are related to. Being here today, I don’t need a calendar or holiday to tell me what matters, but I understand, maybe a little more than I did before, why the day exists. Because even when you think you have learned how to live across continents, life reminds you that family is not an idea. It is a responsibility and, sometimes, it is not only yours. And maybe that’s the part I understand now: the heart doesn’t only keep you alive — it draws you back to your people, to the kind of family that extends beyond blood.