As I’ve heard from my mom countless times, “friends and people can come and go, but family is forever.” Being taught the values of what being a part of a family means and how important family is, those words have rung in my ears since an early age, forming a bias to how I believe a family should be.

Though I can say this on my behalf, very few can say the same today. It is too common now to see families torn apart over differences between each other and from outside forces they cannot control.

A family is supposed to be a strong force, a system brought from love, compassion, and acceptance to form a unit of security for everyone intertwined within a family. Why is it that nowadays, when a fellow family member comes out as gay, transgender, or a different sexuality, some family members see them differently, as if they still are not the same person that was in the family before? Does this blindness that sets over the eyes of those who reject their loved ones, who never felt accepted in their own skin to begin with, have to push them away?

Regardless of religion, what you have been taught in school or heard from others, that shouldn’t be any excuse to turn your back on a family member. When someone goes into a night club and causes terror and violence because he agrees that having different feelings in their sexuality or personality is wrong, it’s time to open the eyes of the blind and help them see how there is no problem in sight. Families shouldn’t separate and fall apart because someone comes out. They should make a family come together because they can now understand one another better and make their family stronger.

Though families can be hurt internally, the effects of external forces can be even harsher on them. In this past decade terrorism, acts of hate crime, and the regulation of immigration and trying to survive in our unforgiving world, the strain this puts on families is brutal. People have burned churches, gone into movie theaters, schools, and airports to bomb and shoot innocent civilians, raged war in countries and forced millions to move around the world for refugee and risk their lives to live. Just recently, another suicide bombing from ISIS in Baghdad, Iraq killed hundreds of innocent people. Now, you read how people in these events have been separated from their family members across borders, lost loved ones and can’t fathom why they were the unlucky ones and have to mourn the loss of someone they care for.

With all of this being said, we shouldn’t take for granted who we have in our lives, or how often we get to see our family, or even how little we do. Someone in this world is losing someone that is connected to them, someone they loved because of violence or for feeling exiled. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, the next day, or a week from now. We should just accept, love, and respect everyone in our families, enjoy their company, get to know and truly understand one another, and not forget how easily families can be torn apart or lose their bond.