They were apologetic and offered to search deeper into archived files, hoping to clarify what happened decades ago during that chaotic night. While waiting for them to investigate, my sister and I walked through the nearby park—the same one we had visited as kids. Every memory we shared, every inside joke, every argument, and every milestone came rushing back. It was strange how a single piece of paper could shake something so familiar, yet everything we had lived through remained unchanged. “If there’s someone out there who’s biologically connected to me,” she said, “I’m open to finding them. But that doesn’t replace what we have.” Her words were simple, but they grounded me more than anything else.
A week later, the hospital contacted us. Their review confirmed there had indeed been an administrative error during the emergency relocation of infants, and they offered support for any next steps if we chose to explore further. But as we all sat together again—my parents, my sister, and me—there was a shared understanding that our family wasn’t defined by what happened in a power outage decades ago. It was defined by years of love, laughter, challenges, and shared experiences. Biology explains where we come from, but family explains who we become. And no test, no misplaced document, and no mix-up could ever take that away from us.
