To The Family That Was Never Meant To Be Mine

It’s been a tough year, friends.  I haven’t made that a secret at all.  While the going ons might not have been disclosed, you’ve been fully aware of this rollercoaster we’ve been on since December.

This morning I’m sitting on my couch, an abundance of natural light seeping in through the many, many windows, sipping coffee from the club house because I ran out of creamer, and I can’t help but have a full heart.

Today, we’re off to SC to visit our “family.”  Most people get one good family in this life, maybe two if you married into an open hearted one, but not many get to experience the warmth of being absorbed into a family that was never meant to be your own.

Nearly ten years ago, I applied for a job that I was desperate for.  Once again, I found myself in the throws of a mess when a bubbly, curly haired brunette, whom I’d only met once, fought for my chance at the position.  It was a simple, meaningless encounter, really.  I was just a girl with a resume.  She was just an employee.

But we both knew in that moment that we were on the brink of something important.  Something amazing.  It wasn’t just a job at a rug store.  It was a defining moment in our lives.  An introduction to the person who’d be on the other end of almost every break-down phone call.  The receiving end of every excited tale.  The person who becomes your person.  An adoption into a family you otherwise would have never known.

I think back on the last near decade and can’t believe there could have been a missed opportunity here.  If things had turned out any differently with that job, my husband and I would be missing an entire extension of our family.

Family is important, everyone knows that.  But there’s something uniquely special about a family who chooses you.  You aren’t their’s.  You aren’t their problem.  You aren’t their responsibility.  And yet they claim you anyways, taking on the good, bad and ugly with you, standing in your corner when it would be easier to run.

There’s no Hallmark holiday for people like this.  So consider today the day.  The Mother’s Day to all the mothers who didn’t have to be.  A Father’s Day to all the dads who adopted their daughter’s best friends.  The day to celebrate a brother getting the opportunity to bug another big sister.  Is there a word for this kind of family?  The ones who collect you along the way, claiming you?  I’m not sure there is.

But regardless, today, my heart is full.