Family

I've been spending a lot of time contemplating this word, lately. It makes sense, as our family is about to increase with you in our home, which is what we have always wished for.

Your dad's cousin Dave just found us on Facebook--this crazy social networking thing that may or not be around when you are old enough to understand it. Suffice to say I was amazed, in looking at his photographs, how much of a resemblance there was between him and your dad--not just in appearance, but apparently in spirit and demeanor--they both make the same faces and seem to have the same crazy sense of adventure. It made me tear up a little bit.

I know that you might not look like us physically, but that does not mean that you won't BE like us. I am adopted, too, and your Grandpa Brand always said that I walked just like your Lola Lou: with my nose in the air. I denied it for years until your father admitted it was true, and now I take it as a great compliment.

I received a myriad of gifts from your grandparents, most of which I can see more clearly now that they have passed on. From my mother I get my sense of fashion, my desire to have pretty things around me, and my spoiled nature, as she and I were and are spoiled by our husbands. But that's on the surface. I think that she also gave me a sense of solidity that I am now only beginning to understand. She had only a few, carefully chosen close friends, and I share that quality. She knew exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it, and by the time she was older she had no shame about stating that, every day, to anyone whom she felt was worthy of her time. I don't think I have reached that point yet, but I do see in myself that same capacity; I know what is important to me and have begun to shed those things and people that do not in some way make me a better person.

Your Grandpa Brand is easier to spot, I think. He was an intellectual that loved to read and study. He had an insatiable curiosity about many things. I see his sense of justice in me clearly, especially in my teaching. He had a fun sense of humor and a love for literature. These things were my legacy.

Your Grandpa Brand was also a bit of a loner, and in some ways I am, too. I am a social person who can carry on a conversation, but I was never a social butterfly, maybe because for so long I felt like the caterpillar who would roll up into a ball when prodded too hard. I enjoy my silence and my alone time. You'll probably figure that out as you get older.

So I am amazed and fascinated by how you will turn out. I look forward to you and Daddy making the same faces, and to you and I loving books. It may not happen in a way we expect, but I do know, from the depths of my heart, that you will be my child, and we will be your family. Blood does not matter. The heart, however, does.