June 14th 2020

Chapter 166
Their Choice of Kinship

June 8th 2027

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter on behalf of my friends, Isaiah and Nadine. When I was asked to put into words who they were as people, as potential parents, the answer was easy. I have been friends with them most of my life and theirs. I have seen them both grow from strangers to friends, seen them fall in love and grow together, through ups and downs. And I have seen them through this time in their lives, when their wish of making a family together was challenged by problems beyond their control. Finding just the stories to share was the difficult part.

I have known Isaiah Babineaux since we were both very young. He was four, I was five. I don't remember a time when he wasn't right there by my side. Neither one of us had any brothers or sisters, but from the moment we met we were that for one another, best friends and brothers. I have watched him evolve from a boy to a man, and naturally he has changed in many ways over the past twenty-one years, but the qualities I have seen carry through those years are the ones that make one of the best people I've ever known.

Isaiah is kind. This might sound simple, as a word, as a sentiment, but to know him like I do, I could not find a better one to suit him. He is funny, and energetic, and he can make anyone smile if given half a chance. He loves to dance, and he will show off his moves whenever they are needed, especially to cheer people up. But most of all, if I had to pin down one core quality to define my friend Zay, I would say that he is kind.

When I was thirteen years old, I was suspended from school for the better part of the year, which forced me to repeat the seventh grade. It was a time in my life which plagued me for a long time, still does sometimes. My actions, as good intentioned as they had been, left me deeply shamed. They painted me in a color which many people around me saw as deplorable and permanently telling of my character. Others who knew me better continued to stand by me, but none of them did so the way Isaiah did. He never once allowed me to believe any of the words said about me, no matter how much a part of me couldn't help but take them in.

Every day for the rest of that school year, he would come over to my house after he got out of class. He was in the sixth grade at the time, a year below me. If he couldn't make it on any of those days, he would call. On the weekends, he practically lived at our house for how much time he spent there, even more so once summer started. Any kid would want to hang out with his or her best friend, but it was about more than that. He understood how lonely I was becoming, and he wanted to cheer me up. He'd always find some reason or another, saying he wanted to show me this game he got, or this movie he'd heard about, saying he wanted to borrow something, or to ask if I thought he'd gotten taller… He probably thought I couldn't see through his visits, and I never saw reason to tell him I knew. He was my best friend, my brother, and he wanted to keep me company.

The boy he was at age twelve is not so different from the man he is now at twenty-five. He's the one that shows up for you, no matter what. That's the kind of father I know he will be. When Isaiah Babineaux takes you into his heart, you're family, for life. And when you're his family, he will do whatever he can to protect you, to support you, to make you laugh.

I met Nadine Zhu the summer before she and Isaiah both started the sixth grade, met her the same day the two of them met each other. They were twelve years old, both of them, nearly thirteen. We were at the park, four of us playing basketball, and she came upon us after catching our runaway ball. Isaiah asked her if she wanted to play with us.

Within an hour of knowing her, we all had a good first impression of who this girl was. Driven and fearless, with a mean hook shot and an honest and open mind… She was funny, too, the kind of funny that complimented Isaiah's right away. We called them Z and Z, Tall Z and Little Z. The name caught on pretty quick. She became one of us without even trying.

It wasn't just that she was the only girl hanging out with a bunch of boys who'd grown up together that made it so that she took care of us a lot of the time in that first year. She was always the most level-headed of all of us. She was the eldest of three, soon four girls, with a father who worked nights and a mother who needed help with the house and the littler ones. If that wasn't enough, here we were, collecting bumps and bruises like it was our job. She probably saved our necks a couple of times.

We'd known each other no more than five months when I was suspended. She could have walked away from me, from Isaiah, from all of us, and decided that she needed better friends. But she didn't do that. If anything, that time made us better friends.

Over Christmas, she had invited my family to come see the lights outside her house. I used the opportunity to ask her a favor. I asked her if she might tutor me, in private. I didn't want it to become a thing with the rest of my friends, didn't want them to know I worried about what it would be like when I went back to school, if I hadn't been in class for almost a year. As I said, we barely knew each other at the time, but she agreed. So, once a week, either in person or over the phone or computer, we'd have our lessons. She would give me something to do and I would do it throughout the week, and we would go over it the next time. We kept it up, from January through August. I don't know that I would have been able to return to school that September with half the confidence I had if it wasn't for her.

Nadine Zhu deserves to be a mom, as much as any kid would be lucky to have the chance to call her by that name. Mine will only be one of many letters telling you the same thing, in my own way, because anyone who counts her as a friend could tell you what I have come to know over these past thirteen years. And what I've come to know is that this woman has been taking care of us since she was a girl, and now it is our privilege, as her friends, to show her that same amount of care by speaking on her behalf.

As good as they are as individuals, they have always been a pair, since the days of Z and Z. They were the first of any of us to start dating, just before eighth grade. There is no hiding of the fact that they split up, for nearly half a year, three years ago, just as they would both tell you they had been miserable the entire time. They had gone away together when we all started college, they were so far away, which made it impossible for several of us to do whatever we could, from a distance, to be there for them, as they had always been for us. But then by the time they reconciled it was all too clear that none of us needed to do much. Given half a chance, they were going to find their way back to each other, where they belonged. Looking at them now, they are without a doubt stronger for the experience.

Two years ago, I had the pleasure and the privilege to act as best man at their wedding. And by the time you read this letter, in all likelihood, Isaiah will have already returned the favor at my own. On that day, two years ago, I made my proposal, on the day of Isaiah and Nadine's wedding, which, to some people, could be seen as inappropriate. It wasn't that to them; it wasn't even a question. Here was an opportunity for one friend to spring an unexpected surprise on another. It didn't take away from their day so much as make it even more memorable.

The two of them together, they are something to behold. I could go on, sharing many more stories, anecdotes, victories big and small, comically embarrassing memories, for pages and pages. Instead, if I may indulge, I would like to share not a story but a hope. There is so much of the past for me to tell, but when all that is done, there's the future, too. Isaiah and Nadine have been dreaming of this family of theirs for some time already, as I myself have dreamed of one of my own, with my fiancée and wife to be. The four of us, as many of our group of friends, have grown together throughout the years. Now we stand as adults, some of us married, others headed down that direction, and many of us now thinking of this next step in our journey.

We have grown together, and as the years go on, as our families grow, I imagine days upon days, where we get to watch our children grow together. Just months ago, it was New Year's Eve, and that vision had never felt so clear. For a brief time, it was beginning. I sat with my best friend, and we just started to picture it. He told me how he could just about picture a little boy, sort of tall, all limbs like him but as much of his mother in him as possible. He asked me about when my fiancée and I would be coming around to our own kids. It was still a question at the time, as far as I was concerned, but I knew why he was asking. We'd been part of each other's lives for as long as we could remember, and he liked the idea of our kids together. I liked it, too.

He asked me what I saw, and I told him, and for a while we conjured up the adventures of a dream boy and girl, watching fireworks together, playing basketball, as we looked on.

You may not know my friends, but I hope that my letter, and all the other letters you will find with it will allow you to get to know them enough, to help them on the path of becoming the parents they have dreamed of becoming. Theirs will be a happy, loving home, with a lot of laughter, a lot of love, and so so much dancing.

Thank you for your time,

With regards,

Lucas Friar

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners