I Took In My Closest Friend’s Child as My Own and Twelve Years Later, One Hidden Truth Tested Everything We Built

For a long time, I believed family was something assigned at birth.

A shared last name.

Faces that looked familiar in old photographs.

Stories passed down around crowded dinner tables.

That was the version of family I saw in movies and school textbooks, but it was never the one I lived.

What I learned instead is something far more lasting.

Family is who stays when life becomes uncertain.

I know this because I grew up without anyone to stay.