Hey, Jackie. Congrats on being born last Tuesday. Welcome to Earth, kid. Your mother says you tipped the scale at nine pounds and nine ounces. Please allow me to be the first to say: Dang.
You’re a big boy and you haven’t even discovered carbohydrates yet.
Your mother also told me she named you after Jack Roosevelt Robinson, the baseball player who scored 947 runs, had 1,518 hits, and stole 197 bases over 10 seasons. Robinson embodied the American spirit and revolutionized the game. I, for one, think it was a fine choice for a name.
And a good name is important in this world because a name sticks with you. A name outlives you. Sometimes in life it will seem as though your name is all you have left.
But anyway, the reason I’m writing to you, Jackie, is because when your mother emailed yesterday she sounded pretty blue.
Your mom said your family situation is not ideal. Many of your immediate family members have left the picture, and your biological
father is absent.
“I feel like I have no family,” wrote your mother. “Like we’re all alone and nobody cares about us.”
So even though you are still in the maternity ward, and have therefore yet to receive a valid tax-ID (EIN) or accumulate any credit history, there are some things I want to tell you. Things I have learned in my short life. So I’ll quit wasting your time and cut to the car chase:
Your mother is wrong.
She is not alone. Neither are you. You both have a very real family. And it’s an exponentially big one, too. You just don’t know it yet.
Listen to me. Family is not DNA and it has nothing to do with your gene pool. It's not about biological traits, sharing a last name, or having the same predisposition toward high LDL. Your family is people who love you,…