“Will he know the difference?” he asked. “Please don’t tell him, Mommy.”     

It was a precious moment. My 11 year old son, Isaiah, and Shepherd Colin, our little miracle baby (born at 33 weeks gestation) and I were sitting on the oversized rocking chair together, staring at our beautiful new gift of life. All the ten children had loved seeing the baby grow in my tummy and reveled in the times when they saw him kicking and rolling around. It was enshrouded in mystery. We didn’t find out the gender of our baby until he was born as the children enjoyed the competition between the two teams. We had five girls and five boys and the new arrival would be the makings of the winning team.

It was amazing to think that this was the darling baby we had grown to love and anticipate during my pregnancy. We were both enraptured with Shepherd’s gorgeous little face when Isaiah said something that caught me off guard.

“Is he going to know, Mommy?”

“Know what?” I asked.

“Are you going to tell him, Mommy?”

“Tell him what?” I said. He was so earnest with his questions. He kept enquiring and didn’t answer mine.

“But will he know the difference?” he asked again.

“What difference?” He still didn’t answer but kept talking, taken up with the notions turning in his head.

“Maybe, Mommy, he won’t notice, because I have always been here since he came into the world.”  I started to see through the fog of what was on his mind.

“Mommy, where will he think that I get my dark skin? He continued questioning.

“He will think you got your beautiful dark skin the same place he got his light skin--from God and the heart of His creativity. It is boring for everyone to be the same as one another. I am so glad we have different colors in our family because God has different colors amongst His children.”

Isaiah had told me in the past that he did not like the word “adoption” when referring to himself. It made him feel too new and different. I now knew exactly what was on his mind.

“Isaiah,” I said, “I don’t see any difference between you and baby Shep. You may look different, but that is the fun part. Vision looks nothing like Mommy or Daddy with his flaming red hair, green eyes and turned up nose. I don’t love my children because they look like me. I love them because they are mine. Whether you became mine by adoption or pregnancy doesn’t matter to me. Adoption and pregnancy are just words, words that have the same outcome, words for the way you arrived and became mine. Whether someone took the bus, rode in a car, went by ship or flew in a plane—it’s all minor transportation details.

“Isaiah, before the beginning of time, God planned for you to be my precious child, to love, train and hold in my heart forever. He decided this for Shepherd too. You are both equally mine and equally adored. Whether you grew in my tummy or inside my heart, it doesn’t matter to me.

“Shepherd grew in my womb for almost nine months but you grew in my heart for nine months. To get you here in my arms was a long and rocky process. My daily thoughts were weaved with longing prayers for you. My heart swelled, grew and beat for you. My heart was pregnant with you. It held a bulging love that kept growing until it burst open and the dream of you became a reality when I first saw your face. All that matters to me is that you are mine. All eleven of my beautiful gifts from God are equally anticipated and celebrated. God wrapped some of you up differently. But the wrapping doesn’t matter, does it? It is the gift you care about.

“To answer your question, Baby Shep will know no difference. He will only know that he has a cool, good-looking muscularly African brother that he will look up to and want to be like. The fact that you were adopted, Isaiah, is a minor detail.”    

Isaiah gave the baby a gentle, but fervent hug, and ran off to play with a new spring in his step and the excitement of a new brother to love.

When I am grocery shopping, or out and about in town, and a well-meaning on-looker sees my crowd trailing behind and ask if I run a youth group or am a nanny of many, I say, “No, these are all my children.”

Sometimes they ask, “But which ones are really yours? I am sure you know my answer, “They are all mine, and there is no difference.”

SERENE ALLISON

Primm Springs, Tennessee, USA