June 15th 2020

Chapter 167
Their Choice of Love

June 11th 2027

To whom it may concern,

When I was asked if I would write this letter for my friends, to present them as they are, to help them on their way toward adoption, the answer was easy. Nadine and Zay have been two of my very best friends, from the day I met them twelve years ago. I can say with confidence that I would not be the person I am today without them. I have been made better, many times over, because of their friendship, their support, and just who they are as people. I can't even imagine what it would be like to seek out complete strangers and choose them to raise one's child, so allow me to paint you a picture of this couple as I have known them and come to love them.

I moved from New York to Texas when I was thirteen years old. It was a difficult transition for me to make and when the time came for me to start school again, I was not looking forward to it. I would be surrounded by brand new people, and the school year had already started. And then I met Zay. He had been selected by the principal to be my guide, but as a favor to his best friend he respectfully passed on the task. This best friend, by the time you read this, is my husband.

Zay was no longer my guide, officially, but he became a fast friend. It is easy to like him. He has this easy-going lightness to him, the kind that makes you want to smile, to talk with him and get to know him. There is not a bone in him that isn't genuine, he can only ever be one hundred percent Zay. He doesn't take himself more seriously than he ever has to, he loves life, he is welcoming and kind, humble and caring, and as easy as it is for him to crack jokes, it would be easy for people not to see how observant he is of the world around him, and those he cares for.

I discovered the depth of Zay's character very early on. I was still having difficulty adjusting to my relocation from New York, still missed my old home, and one night I tried to run away. I had confessed this much to my then new friend and eventual fiancé, Lucas, and he offered to accompany me. Whether he ever expected us to make it out of the city, I couldn't say, but both he and Zay came to find me before I could go anywhere. He was the one who pieced it together. Lucas still wanted to go with me, and Zay decided to come along. He was thirteen, I'd recently turned fourteen. As plans went, there were several flaws from the get go, though none of us were old enough to see them and recognize them. Zay wanted to come along, wanted to protect me, his friend. If he couldn't stop me going, then he'd be there to back me up. It was a big moment for him.

We never made it out of Austin. If you were to ask any of the three of us, we never expected to make it anywhere, but this feeling had to be spent, and Zay, like Lucas, stood by my side, all the way, because that's just who he is. He looks out for the people he cares for, he is relentless at it.

This coming fall, he will be starting his second year as a teacher, in the fourth grade. To hear him speak about his class, his students, there is just no limit to the pride he shows in his work and in his kids. And in this second set of fourth graders, as we have all been playfully teasing him, he will get to teach his very own sister-in-law, Nadine's youngest sister, Olivia, who just turned ten. We have all watched her grow since she was born, and though we have been close to all three of Nadine's younger sisters, Zay has always had the tightest bond with Olivia. She was like the little sister he never had, and she treated him like something between an imaginary friend and a teddy bear. Even as he and Nadine relocated to Boston for college, he never forgot her or cut her out of his life, not even in the brief period when he and Nadine were broken up. To see the two of them together is to see the potential Zay has in him to be an amazing father.

The day I met Nadine, I gained a sister. The two of us being the only girls among a group of six might have made our friendship easy, but really it had a lot more to do with who she was. She was a recent transfer herself, new of the year before, and she understood what it was like. She had so much confidence in herself, an unshakeable strength, and she exuded these qualities in such a way that made me want to strive to grow and evolve, like I could believe I had so much more to offer. I did have so much more, and a lot of it was manifested thanks to her.

First, she was my friend, my sister, and then she became my teammate. We were on our school's basketball team from the eighth grade through the twelfth. We didn't get to play through tenth and eleventh, when our school's teams were disbanded, but ask any one of us who were on those teams at the time and they will tell you, we never stopped being teammates. We had a fantastic first season together, in middle school, and then we started high school. Nadine didn't know if she would try out that year. She had her studies, and she had the team, and one had to take priority. She didn't want either side to suffer for divided attention. In the end, the two of us worked together, to balance out both sides. It meant a lot of work on my side, to improve my grades enough to reach her level. She was worth all of it, and with her motivation and support, I got to where I needed to be. It is the kind of inspiration I hope to pass on to my own students as I begin my first year of teaching in the fall.

From friend, sister, classmate, and teammate, Nadine and I have been bandmates for the past ten years. What started out as a few teenage girls trying their hand at music has turned into a journey beyond our wildest dreams. We have been places, met people, and done things that we will remember for the rest of our lives. Nadine had to step away from the band while she was away to study in Boston, but she has been back with us for the past two years, lending her voice and other musical talents to the group she helped create.

Being far apart from friends has never been easy, especially when difficult times strike any one of us. I was so far away from both Nadine and Zay as they went through their break, and there was hardly anything I could do. Then, three years ago, I lost my father. He lived back in New York, and while I was up there, Nadine and Zay both came over from Boston whenever time allowed, and sometimes even when it didn't. And once I returned to Austin, they would call, every day, either one or the other or both, for weeks and months after. We would write each other, all of us, on a near daily basis already, but they would take this time out of their days, whether it was a few minutes or nearly an hour. There were days when I looked forward to their calls, knowing how just the sound of their voices or seeing their faces would do me good. I don't know that I've ever really thanked them for that, but I hope they know, how much it meant to me, how much I love them for it.

Nadine and Zay were the first in our little group, the original seven, to get together. They were just fourteen at the time, and it was hard to predict where any of us would end up as time went on, but I think you could ask any of us and we would say we knew at least that these two were meant to carry on. It is almost too strange to think, sometimes, how the six of those seven have since paired up, how we could all have found that one person for us, right next to us. But now here we are, one couple married, another about to be married, and the other showing no sign of slowing down. And that little group of seven is so much bigger now. Before we know it, it will get so much bigger…

Nadine and Zay were the first of us to get together, the first of us to be married, and they might have been the first of us to have a child if not for the losses they have suffered. Now, here we are. You may not know Nadine and Zay, but you will find there are so many of us, near and far, ready and willing to tell you all about them, tell you how much they deserve to be parents. They await this chance, just as we await it for them.

For my part, I like to imagine that this child is already out there somewhere, and they don't know it yet, but somewhere in Austin, Texas, their family is already there, just waiting to meet them, to hold them and love them. They'll have a staggering amount of aunts and uncles, born of friendship, ready to embrace them, and show them the world. They'll three sweet young aunts, ready to swarm in with so much love. They'll have a great great grandmother who makes the best cookies in the world. They'll have grandparents standing by so eager to hold their own babies' first baby. And they'll have a mother and father who have so much love built up in them, just waiting to give it to this child.

As I'm sitting here, trying to think of how I'm supposed to close this letter, when so many stories are competing to be told, I keep thinking back to so many little things, tiny snippets of life that almost seem too insignificant to be called to, and still… I think of friends dancing at Chubbie's, of shared treats at the movie theater, and smores around a campfire. I think of airports, with sad farewells and giddy reunions. I think my own young brothers and sisters, eager for a visit from Uncle Zay and Aunt Nadine. I think looks of deep love in the middle of a first dance as husband and wife. I think of hopes dashed and hope returned. I know more than my share about how precious and fragile hope can be, how hard it can be to hold on to it or even believe in it at all. And they have it, now. They have it, and we're all here, all of us, this family we made, so many aunts and uncles, nesting our hands around theirs, to protect that hope and make it stronger.

Thank you very much,

Maya Hart

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners