One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

Being related to someone guarantees proximity, not allegiance. A person who has chosen you, and keeps choosing you when it is inconvenient, offers something obligation cannot manufacture. The comparison is not about family counting for nothing, it is about the difference between a tie you were born into and one renewed on purpose.

If your family is close, that is because somebody keeps choosing as well as being related. If it is not, you are allowed to build the other kind and to stop apologising for it. Either way, notice who turns up without being summoned and tell them what it has meant.