To my daughters on the day of your adoption,
I’ve called you by that label, that sacred name, “daughter,” many times. But today is different.
Today there’s no prefix, no subtext, no “sort of but not really” as there has always been before. You’re not my foster daughter, I don’t love you “like you’re my own.” Today you are wholly, completely, for forever my daughter.
Image: Hannah Marie Photo
You were dropped off at our home, dropped into our family, and we chose to love you like a daughter. We chose it even before we had the chance to fall in love with you. But the falling happened. After bursting into our family, you eased into our lives and hearts. The formalities of our state-regulated, court-appointed, “temporary” relationship faded away. We dropped the “foster” from your title, and you simply became “daughter.”
When I birthed your brother and sister, becoming a mother and loving them as a mother loves, completely shocked me. One moment they weren’t here, and the next I loved them more than life. Today isn’t like that.
Today reminds me more of when I married your daddy. I met him. Then I fell in love with him, knew I would spend the rest of my life with him. And then came the day to make it official. Papers were signed, names were changed, ceremonies were had, but I didn’t love him any more than I had the day before. He was the same. I was the same. Nothing had changed. But everything had. After that day, we belonged to each other, officially, forever.
