by Maya Michel

Created on: April 16, 2009

I have a son from another mother. My kids have a brother from another mother. There is no difference in our home between my birth children and my non-birth child. We are equal.

He came to us when he was eight. All of his worldly possessions were packed up into a box about the size of two shoe boxes. He did have a backpack stuffed with old hand-me-down clothes from his brothers and nothing else. Even though they were torn and tattered, sticky polyester and pilled, he refused to let them go. They were his bridge to his past. Every shirt he wore made him feel closer to the brothers that he no longer lived with. There were too many siblings to be placed together so they were separated and he was very much alone.

He had never had anything of his own. He had never been taught how to ride a bike, he never thought that a bike might be a possibility. He came to us two months before his ninth birthday.

On Thanksgiving he looked so tiny at his end of our big table. He still wasn't too sure about me so he sat as far from me as he could. To him I was the woman who kept laying down rules and buying him fresh new clothes that he shunned, But he loved my 16 year old son. In the first week, my son had taught him how to ride a bike and had fixed up his old BMX to give to him.

In the beginning my litttle one stayed as far away from me as possible. He didn't know if he'd like it in our home and he didn't want to like me. For school events, I would offer to attend and he'd beg me to not come. I tried to see it from his level, he had had a number of carers by then and it would have been embarrassing to, yet again, have to introduce another woman to his teacher and ~ heaven forbid ~ his friends. I respected that. I could only imagine what it would be like to be taken from a home full of siblings and parents, to be moved from place to place and to have to make do. To get used to so many different personalities and rules and still go to school and try to be eight. My heart hurt for this little boy but at the same time it was guarded, uncertain about whether we'd flow, whether he would fit in.

His birthday came and went, and very soon came Christmas. He had never gotten a pile of presents for either before. When i asked him to make a Christmas list he said that he felt selfish and guilty for asking for wishes. My children and I bought him a bike of his own. His eyes were as big as saucers and he couldn't believe that he had something so enormous. We had chipped in and got him a second-hand

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