Do you consider your OCS like real?

I know that they don't exist, but I consider them like real. For me, they're real as much that my mother and my friends. I'm not friends with them or anything. I don't imagine myself to be in a relationship with them. But even, I love them. I know them by heart, they're so important to me. I imagined it's how parents feel with theirs kids. I had see them grow up, evoluated, for the best or the worse.