Birth Family Narrative

A family sits down for dinner. A young man plays piano. A mother patiently braids her daughter’s hair. Warm yellow windows stare back at me. Each one offers entry into simple routine nights, but they all jerk away as my train pushes forward and the conductor demands my ticket.

I was adopted from foster care when I was 5. However, I have known my birth family and my mentally ill birth mother my entire life. Three times a year I travel from my home in the South Bronx to my birth family’s in Montgomery County, Maryland. The switch from the poorest congressional district in the country to one of the wealthiest, mixed with the transition between families, makes me lose my bearings. Going south, I lose my mother. Going north, I lose my grandmother, aunts, uncle and cousins. Yet the sense of loss I feel leaving one family behind is relieved by my time on the train. The journey both ways holds unparalleled meaning for me; I find peace.

The train ride is
In Maryland, my grandmother cooks all afternoon until the kitchen is thick with scents of oil and cumin, and their perfume flows under each room’s doorway. My cousins and I sift through the attic’s fascinating content until we are greeted by the familiar smell, telling us it is dinnertime. In New York, I wait for my mom to finish the Sunday Times, and then we take the 4 train to a film at MoMA. In Maryland, we watch Bollywood movies, I eat what I am served, and I hope that I am being a fun granddaughter and cousin. In New York, I forget to cap the toothpaste and die laughing when my mom tries to dance. I can never have both families at the same time, but I can appreciate my families and be any form of myself on the train. In its liminal space, I can exist as who I am. My experience on the train moves me toward growth. I can appreciate both of my families and my own