what adoption taught me

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Haiti.

I miss it sometimes for reasons I can’t always place my finger on. Sometimes I miss it for other people (little people who can’t remember what they miss) and sometimes I think I want to go back and finish things I began. I don’t know if I’ll go back, but I want to. Haiti rarely leaves my mind for a day.

For years now I’ve followed various blogs and Facebook groups which feed my constant need to see pictures of Haiti and her people. I often cry along with the nurses at Real Hope for Haiti as they show pictures of starving, dying babies and hopeless moms and dads. I pray for them and then, typically move on.

But sometimes, a picture really strikes me and I take longer to click away, move on. Sometimes the eyes look familiar. Sometimes I think I’ve seen those hands somewhere before. Sometimes the hurting families pictured on these blogs and websites look like my family.

This is what adoption has taught me.

Jubilee is my sister. She talks like us, eats like us, sings the same songs I sang when I was little. She reads my old books and wears my old clothes. She is unique. She is beautiful. She means everything to me. I’ve helped raise her up from infancy. I learned how to change diapers, how to rock and soothe a crying baby, how to entertain a toddler-for her.

Jubilee isn’t a number on a graph about orphans. She isn’t a statistic about victims of poverty. She’s a person and she’s my sister.

When I see a picture of a hungry baby, I can imagine that they are just another “case.” I can click away and not let their eyes haunt me, because surely they are different. Different than me. Different than Jubilee.

But when they look like her. When they look like Willin. I remember. I remember that everybody is somebody’s everything. Everybody is somebody. Everybody is a self.

Not a number. Not a statistic. Not another sad case. A person. A soul. A fragile body. A Jubilee. A Willin. You and I.

everly