Not just friends. Sisters.

“Do you think we look like sisters?”

The question comes from the backseat, where Aberash sits with a friend as we make our way to the beach.  Much of the ride has been giggles and singing along loudly to Demi Lovato, so maybe I can be forgiven for not fully understanding the gravity of the question. 

I look at the two of them in the mirror.  They both have brown skin, although Tigist is a slightly lighter shade.  They have temporarily fulfilled their craving for long hair with synthetic braids, pulled back in pony tails.  But to me, the similarity ends there.  Different noses.  Different eyes.  Different lips. 

When I say “no” I am met with immediate and loud protests.  “What are you talking about?” they ask.  “Our skin is the same color, our eyes are the same, our noses are the same…”  The protests are delivered with no small amount of incredulity, like I must be either blind or stupid.  And their unanimous agreement makes me feel like a little of both.      

“We aren't just friends,” Aberash says.  “We’re sisters.”

Then.

I met Tigist on the same day I met Aberash, in the courtyard of the orphanage where the children would play. This was pretty much unavoidable, because they always seemed to be at each other's side.  They played together and laughed together. Aberash would boss and Tigist would (usually) follow.  More than that, they cared for each other.  If Aberash got gum, Tigist was the first person she shared it with.  When Aberash needed help, Tigist was always the person who gave it to her.        

Adoption is based on the belief that shared genetics are not an imperative to making a family, and I entered into all of this never questioning that belief.  But I didn't understand what it did take to make a family.  Not really.  Two years later and I'm still figuring it out.

For months following the adoption, I heard the same thing.  "Aberash is so lucky to have you guys as a family!"  I imagine for a moment that this is how the bonds of family are formed - instantaneously, as the adopted child realizes with intense gratitude that he/she has hit some kind of family lottery.  But for Aberash, all of this started with her being taken - against her will - from her home.  The only place she had ever known. One day there were relationships and people and places she never questioned as a stable source of comfort and security. The next they were gone.  For Aberash, luck had nothing to do with coming to our family.  But I know these statements come from a place of ignorance and good intentions.  And I can relate to those two things all too well.  Because I took it for granted that the parenting rule book I had written with Taidgh would give me all I needed with Aberash.  I didn't know what to do when my desire to teach clashed with her need to control.  I was completely unprepared for her tendency to lash out at me, push me away, when she was feeling vulnerable.  Too often I took this all as personal slights.  I wasn't the source of stability she desperately needed, letting selfishness and my injured heart stand in the way of us.

At times the word "nurture" feels wrong to me.  It suggests that the bonds of family are teased out gently, with careful attention, over time.  Certainly there is a lot of truth to that.  But it doesn't capture all of it.  Because sometimes the bonds of family are formed in fire and storm.

Tigist and Aberash probably spent no more than 4 months together in the orphanage.  But those months were also very likely the worst period of their lives.  They were together through shitty food, hard beds and cold showers.  Through nannies who cared for their physical needs, but not their emotional ones.  Through unimaginable sorrow of abandonment and fear for what was to come.  They shared gum with each other, helped each other with their hair, giggled behind the nannies' backs, and held each other at night.

And now.

The conversation in the car has turned again, to discussions of what they will do at the beach.  Later on they will argue about something, and later still they will get really competitive while playing the Wii.  And there will be giggles.  Lots of giggles.

I may have known that the bonds of family weren't formed in double helix strands, but having my rule book challenged has at times left me shaky and uncertain.  And I think that's OK.  Because I have no idea of what the future holds for these two.  But for now - whether they look like each other or not - they are sisters.  Because when the world twisted around them in a maelstrom of uncertainty, they were there for each other.  Pillars of safety and security and LOVE.  And the sound of sisters giggling is enough to convince me that that's the only rule that really matters.