The Poppi Chronicles

We have absolutely no control over the most life-defining things that happen to us.  We can’t decide where or when we will be born.  We can’t pick what color our skin will be or how tall or fat we will be or whether we will be funny or sad. We can’t determine whether we will be healthy or sickly.  We can’t choose to be a boy with brown eyes and black hair or a girl with blue eyes and blonde hair.  We have absolutely no control over whether we will be pretty or homely, gifted or challenged – bright or stupid.  We can’t even choose whether we will be attracted to members of the opposite sex or members of our own sex.  Who and what we are is just given to us on the day we are born, and from that first breath forward it falls to us to deal with life based solely on what we have been given.

 Late one day in August, 2009, two boys were born. They both came into this world just minutes apart and barely ten feet away from one another. Both were born in the same birthing room in a hospital in Riverside, CA, delivered by the same Doctor.  That is where the similarities stopped.  The two boys were each beautiful in their own way, but there were serious life-impacting differences in the two children.

One of the boys was Caucasian; the other African-American.   The Caucasian boy, you, entered the world and went immediately into the loving arms of your parents and most all of your Grandparents and Great-Grandparents.  The other boy saw only his Mother when he opened his eyes.  If he had a father or an extended family, they somehow had missed this, the single most important day in his young life.  Your birth and medical care were fully covered by health insurance.  The other boy’s medical care was “publicly” provided.   You entered the world to the comfort of your Mom and Dad, both of whom are well educated.  The other boy’s single parent was still very much a child herself.  And then there was that other matter.  Your roommate had a severely cleft palate.

I stood at the hospital’s nursery window and stared in at the two of you sleeping peacefully side by side in your bassinets.  I tried desperately to focus on you, my beautiful, near perfect grandson but my eyes kept drifting over to the other boy.  On this, one of the happiest days of my life, tears formed in my eyes.