Three generations, in one half-chewed ear.
I went back to that church, too, but differently now.
I work with Ms. Tate on kinship searches — making sure that when a child goes into the system, somebody actually finishes looking for the family that’s out there grieving, the way no one finished looking for me.
Five families saw a flag on a file and decided my granddaughter was too much uncertainty to love.
I saw a little girl alone in a playroom and didn’t know she was mine, and I loved her anyway.
That’s the part I hold onto.
Before I knew one drop of her bl*od, before any folder, before any name on any page — I looked at that child, and something in me clicked, and I chose her.
My heart knew her before my mind ever could.
It had been trying to bring my family home all along.
