For Linda and Alfred my adoptive parents

For Linda and Alfred

You didn't grow me under a heartbeat,

but you grew me anyway —

in kitchens and car rides,

in the thousand small decisions

that turn a house into a home

and strangers into Mom and Dad.

I came to you already carrying a story.

You didn't ask me to put it down.

You just made room for it

on the shelf beside everything else you gave me —

and then you kept giving,

year after ordinary year,

until I stopped counting the difference

between the family I was born from

and the family that stayed.

Linda, you taught me that love

isn't loud to be real.

It's patient. It shows up.

It sits with you in the hard years

without asking you to explain them.

Alfred, you taught me that steadiness

is its own kind of devotion —

that a father doesn't have to share your blood

to teach you what safety feels like,

what being chosen on purpose,

every day, quietly, again.

I know I didn't make it easy —

no child arrives without her weather,

and mine came with more storms than most.

But you didn't leave.

You didn't flinch at the parts of me

that came from somewhere you couldn't see.

You just kept the porch light on

until I believed I was allowed to stay.

I don't know if I ever said this right,

so let me try now:

you didn't just raise me.

You chose me on the days I made it hard to,

you loved me before I knew how to receive it,

and you gave me the one thing

every child moving through this world

is quietly praying for —

somewhere to finally

stop moving.

Somewhere to call, without hesitation,

home.

Thank you for being mine.

Thank you for making me yours.For Linda and Alfred

You didn't grow me under a heartbeat,

but you grew me anyway —

in kitchens and car rides,

in the thousand small decisions

that turn a house into a home

and strangers into Mom and Dad.

I came to you already carrying a story.

You didn't ask me to put it down.

You just made room for it

on the shelf beside everything else you gave me —

and then you kept giving,

year after ordinary year,

until I stopped counting the difference

between the family I was born from

and the family that stayed.

Linda, you taught me that love

isn't loud to be real.

It's patient. It shows up.

It sits with you in the hard years

without asking you to explain them.

Alfred, you taught me that steadiness

is its own kind of devotion —

that a father doesn't have to share your blood

to teach you what safety feels like,

what being chosen on purpose,

every day, quietly, again.

I know I didn't make it easy —

no child arrives without her weather,

and mine came with more storms than most.

But you didn't leave.

You didn't flinch at the parts of me

that came from somewhere you couldn't see.

You just kept the porch light on

until I believed I was allowed to stay.

I don't know if I ever said this right,

so let me try now:

you didn't just raise me.

You chose me on the days I made it hard to,

you loved me before I knew how to receive it,

and you gave me the one thing

every child moving through this world

is quietly praying for —

somewhere to finally

stop moving.

Somewhere to call, without hesitation,

home.

Thank you for being mine.

Thank you for making me yours.