Minnie

My name is Minnie. My twin sister’s name is Lola. We were born in the city of Buenos Aires, in a hot February in 1968. It seems that of the two of us, I was the most fragile one and that’s why I had to be hospitalized for a while. I arrived home a few days later than Lola, in the arms of our grandmother Chicha who picked me up at the Rivadavia Hospital.

Everyone knows the revolution that arouses in a home with the arrival of twins. Ours was no exception. When the two of us were finally together at home, we were four months old and very underweight.

We grew up listening to stories about the lack of sleep, the rush to get two cribs, the thousands formula cans we consumed, the daily visits of Dr. Bonano to control our weight. Throughout our lives we heard stories about how our grandmothers knitted booties and onesies, and about how our mother had to wash a million diapers.

Eventually, our parents taught us “how babies are born”. They explained this to us as a totally separate issue from parenthood. Maybe this is why I never had a problem with the fact of being an adoptee.

In fact, when I was six or seven years old, I walked through the halls of my school explaining that our adoption trial was over because the judge had ruled in favor of our adoption. I also said that my parents had already started a new legal procedure to adopt my brother Juani.

I always wondered why grown-ups told me: “You can’t deny that you’re your mother’s daughter”, or “you have your family’s eyes”, or “it’s in your blood”, because clearly there was no biological reason for my resemblances with my adoptive family.

How hard adults try to find resemblances between grandparents, parents and children! Is this the reason why I was always so curious to see the face that I -really- should look after?

Or is it due to that horrible comment that a neighbor once said to my Mom? “Watch out, be careful with these kids, because blood pulls, and who knows where they come from”.

The fact is that confronting the fears, the malicious comments and who knows how many other things, our parents -who are no longer in this world- spent years and years giving us information, pretending it was casual talking.

Then, I knew my previous name. Yes! Before being Minnie, I was called Lidia Ethel, and I also had another surname, hers. Another fact: there was no “him”.

As in many cases “she” had been abandoned.

My parents told me that her name was Justina and that she was from Mendoza, but she lived in Buenos Aires. They also told me that a couple of years after our birth, she had had another baby and had also given him up for adoption.

Moreover, they told me that there was a state office that had my file and that when I wanted to, I could go see it.

Like most couples – and I realized this when I grew up – they chose adoption when Plan A and Plan B failed.

There was one story that I loved to hear. When my parents got the phone call from the family court house, and they told them that there were two four-month-old, underweight twins looking for a family. Mom told us she had a hard time trying to convince Dad, because he was so afraid of suddenly having two babies at once. Dad contradicted her. He claimed that we were fattened with milk and love.

I believe in the child’s right to grow up in a family.

This is why I think of adoption as a plan that grandparents, uncles, and friends should commit to. Just as there is no unique way to become a father, there is no unique way to become a grandfather or uncle. Adoption is everyone’s business.