Born in Philadelphia

I was born on August 4, 1993, in Philadelphia. My birth mother was in a hard situation, and I was placed for adoption. That is the factual beginning, and it is not the sad part of this story.

The part that matters is what came next. My parents did not adopt by accident, and they did not go looking for the easy version of it. They went looking on purpose for kids coming out of hard situations, because that is who they are and that is what they wanted their house to be for. I did not get picked in spite of where I started. I got picked because of where I started.

My brother was adopted separately, his own road into the same house. Two kids who both arrived from somewhere else, raised by two people who decided that was exactly the family they wanted. Most families are assembled by accident and then everyone makes the best of it. Nobody under our roof ended up there by default. Every single person in that house was chosen on purpose.

People talk about adoption like it is a hole in the middle of somebody's story. Mine is the first line of it. I did not inherit a company, or a last name that opened doors, or a head start of any kind. What I inherited was a decision made by two adults about a stranger, that a hard start was worth showing up for anyway. Thirty-plus years later I am still working on being worth that decision, and every promise I have made since runs straight back to it.