She was only a couple months old when my mother found her underweight little body at the bottom of a dingy crib, stinking of old cigarette smoke in a criminally old and dirty diaper. A bath didn’t wash off the stench and all her clothes had to be washed before they smelled clean. She wasn’t ours. She wasn’t even the first to be neglected by her parents. But we were there. My mom brought her home to a 12 and 10 year old, just old enough to where she had started to think about the stresses of motherhood dwindling. Now there was an infant in our house, in desperate need of love, attention, opportunity and food.

I don’t know when she went from a baby we were babysitting, to my sister but I know that now, almost 28 years later, I don’t give it much thought. That little girl became my sister because we fought for her. We stood against selfishness and stubbornness. We pleaded with Judges and walked into Courts, we filed paper work and were inspected, vetted and in the end, we passed. She was my little sister and more than that, blood, biology, never mattered. My mother taught us that love made a family. A mother was the woman who took care of you, kept you safe, kept you fed. A Father was the man who made the time, put in the effort, showed up.

I never new my own father, but that absence didn’t effect me like, I suppose it does others. I had a big, loving, beautiful family. I didn’t have the time or desire to worry about a man who didn’t seem to be worried about me. It’s true, my family was largely my mother’s side and I was biologically her child. Maybe that is why it confuses me when people who were fought for and wanted, care so much about those who didn’t put themselves out there. My sister has always felt the pull of biology, has always felt the need for it’s significance. I’ve learned many adopted children do. A piece they feel is missing, questions they want answered. I never had any questions for my father. He chose to not be a Dad to my brother and I and that was all the answer I needed. My sister felt different. She wanted to know the people who she shared DNA with, even if those specific genetics were less than impressive.

When I found out she was pregnant nearly five years ago I remember laughing until I cried. It was a terrible idea, she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body and to give fully of herself to someone else wasn’t a practiced talent of hers. I was there, standing at her side the second that baby boy came red and wet into the world. I saw the horror on her face as they put that slimy pink creature on her chest for skin to skin contact and I walked my mother’s floors with him the first, second and third nights they had come home from the hospital. She suffered a seriously heavy bout of post-partum depression and giving birth is, in fact, a horrible trauma to the body and mind. The second night she was out of the hospital, she was home and he was with me at my mothers. I fed him, and sang to him and changed his diapers and every now and then, I’d start crying in absolute joy.

I thought so much about the little creature that my mother found in that dirty crib two decades ago, her son now in my hands, a hefty and healthy eight pounds, smelling of lotion and the sweet hint of formula and there’s no doubt in my mind that tough God works in mysterious ways, there is always a plan. She was put into our lives, she was made our sister/daughter/granddaughter/niece- because one day there would be a sweet baby boy who would need us too. He’s going to be five in August and he’s my absolute favorite person, he’s Auntie’s boy and I’m completely obsessed with watching him learn and grow. He loves dinosaurs, bugs and learning what new words mean. He has a wild and vivid imagination and a stubborn streak three miles long. She’s my sister. He’s my nephew. I have no use for the specifics of biology.