Wine-ing

My friend, Aaryn, is an adoptive parent (I feel like there's a way to phrase this that I have done incorrectly, someone please let me know if that's the case). She wrote a piece for the Family Room today that drew my attention to a woman who, in Aaryn's words, makes "[the octomom] look good."

The idea that adoption is somehow inferior to other kinds of parenting has always been abhorrent to me. To hear what this woman has done actually makes my blood feel all boily inside my body. To believe in any way that family-strength bonds cannot be formed with people who do not share our blood is, to my mind, to clearly misunderstand the mechanics of love. (Are you blood related to your spouse? I hope not.)

Because I am lucky an example to support my thesis came up right on cue today. I have known Quewlkat since she was three years old. I have been her teacher, her babysitter, her foolish sidekick and her friend. Recently through my suggestion and her determination she has gotten a job in my neighborhood. Today, knowing that I am broken, she took it on herself to give me a call. She stopped by and brought me a bottle of wine called PETs, a petite sirah whose proceeds go to the ASPCA, in honor of my Emily. We talked out our problems and cried and drank a toast to the best dog ever to grace the planet and we were perfectly comfortable wherever we were emotionally because we are family. We share not a drop of blood and yet there is a steel cable of a bond between us that no one can sever. Give her back? You say that as though it were possible.

It is not.