#4 - Told I Was Adopted

Lucky Little

#4 - Told I Was Adopted

I guess for most people there is never a day that you just look at people's ears and try to find the ones that look most like your own. Big ones, little ones, ones where they are all the way to the head at the bottom and others that have a lobe. Fat lobes, skinny lobes, pointy ears, hairy ears. Just on ears I could spend a whole day. That day as I walked through the grocery store with my mom I saw all kinds of ears. The ones that were the closest match to mine, I mean they looked just like them, was on an older Chinese lady. Was I Chinese? My eyes kinda squinted real tight when I smiled real big. Nah, probably not Chinese. Little. Where do Littles come from? I wonder what my real last name is anyway.

I didn't want to just ask and get a quick answer that would cut me off from asking again. I had to make sure to ask in a way that didn't look like I knew anything. Me and Boyd had told my mom that I got hurt playing ball with some boys at recess. We didn't want to take a chance of Boyd getting in trouble for fighting at school. We hoped the other boys wouldn't say anything to their parents either. She put some ice in a towel and told me to keep it against my face until I couldn't feel the cold anymore, then I could take it off. It went right from cold, to pain, to just flat out numb. I figured it was about right time to take it off. She dried my face with a towel and told me to tell Boyd we were going to run grab some groceries and we'd be right back. I stuck my head in Boyd's room and told him we were leaving. He said, "You really do need to be more careful playing ball Bobby." We smiled at each other and our little brother to brother secret. That's right, we have a secret too, I thought.

So, I run home after school that day, just the first time I had heard that word adopted. And the way the girl said it, just so ugly, I was doing everything I could just not to bust out crying. Get home, run in and kiss my mom. My dad's not home right then. Right to the bookshelf, bookshelf full of encyclopedias. I could go find out anything I wanted to find out, but the best book was the dictionary. Sure enough, I go in there and I look up “adopted.”

I can remember it saying something, taking someone's child to be your own legally. Right away I close up the dictionary, run in my room. I just remember a little later on just bringing it up to them as I'm passing Boyd in the hall and getting ready for dinner. At the dinner table I ask them. They look at each other. I ask them what is adopted. I just remember them pulling out a little card. It had like a mother holding a baby, like a thank you card or something you'd pass out for a celebration, and it said "I Wasn't Expected, I Was Selected."

I just remember them telling me how special I was and probably something along the lines of my parents couldn't take care of me or my mom couldn't take care of me so they gave me to the Littles. I just know from right then just looking at each of my parents and looking at my fingers and my eyes and nose, it just seemed like nobody in the house looked like each other. Everything was different on all of us. It just felt so strange. Why would they give me away? Why would these parents take me?

I know they had told me that my mom couldn't have children for medical reasons, but when were my birth parents going to come back? When were they coming to get me and how long was I going to be with the Littles? Was I going to go from the Littles to someone else next?