by kindred | Apr 28, 2015 | Uncategorized
Family stories fascinate me, especially ones from people who belong to large sibling groups. My friend Adrian is the youngest of eight children. Which is, to me, like winning a sort of low-stakes family anecdote jackpot. I try not to be weird as I slyly prod him to greater revelations about his kin—so you were a surprise baby? Christmases must be crazy! You shared one bathroom?!—but on one particular winter Los Angeles evening, Adrian dropped a tidbit of reality that took my breath away. He said, “I know that all of my siblings will never again be in the same place at the same time.” His tone was casual. He sat in his armchair like he had simply delivered a weather report. The truth was so evident it didn’t raise his pulse. I am the second oldest of seven siblings. My brother, five sisters, and I share the same biological mother and father. We are stair-steps, the seven of us born over a span of nine years. My brother Jacob and I lived with our birthparents until I was seven years old and he was nine. We saw our younger sisters in the hospital on the days they were born and placed in adoptive families. I remember their pink blanket-swaddled bodies in clear acrylic cribs. I remember walking away and leaving them. I grew up tacking their names to the end of my bedtime prayers. God bless Becca, and Lisa, and Rebekah, and Meghan, and Lesley. I grew up waiting for my sisters to find me. Even after I was adopted myself, and the path that would have led...
