The Families We Build: Why Chosen Family Stories Matter More Than Ever

Sometimes the families we are born into break us before they ever try to build us.
Sometimes survival depends on finding the people who choose us back — without obligation, without expectation, simply because they see who we are and stay.

That truth has lived quietly in me for years. As a father, husband, and storyteller, I find myself continually drawn to the resilience it takes to rebuild when the blueprint you were handed no longer fits.

In Ocean Child, my debut novel, three half-sisters raised oceans apart are connected not by sentiment but necessity. Julia, Miriam, and Catrina do not find each other because they were searching. They find each other because the lives they have built — isolated, fractured, fiercely defended — are no longer enough to carry them forward alone.

Chosen family is not about replacing what was lost. It is about survival. About hope. About building something new with bare hands and battered hearts.

I believe those stories matter more than ever. In a world where so many are finding themselves at odds with where they come from, where belonging feels fragile or conditional, the act of choosing to belong becomes an act of courage.

Ocean Child is my tribute to that courage.