This is written for Larry C.Larry, even though I have never experienced the loss of a child, I have experienced loss, and I want you to know that I love you and that I am here for you, because I understand what it is like to lose someone you love.
Everyone, please pardon the slurs, but that is how this story happened.

He Was My Brother

When he was five days old
I held him
His tiny brown hand
Curling gently
Around my fair finger.
Asleep
He sighed a newborn breath.
I softly stroked his cheek
While my parents filled out the papers.
He was not my child.
He was my brother.

Perhaps the adoption
Would have gone well.
He was happy.
His name was laughter.
He loved us
And as he grew
I could see his strength
Within his dark brown eyes.
Such twinkling eyes.
Even when he cried
His eyes smiled.
I wished that I could grow
And have children just like him.
But he was not my child.
He was my brother.

But his mother--
For she dared to call herself so--
Had high friends.
"We don't want no black kids
Growing up confused.
White people just don't know."
She found his father
Who didn't know
But thought he did
And decided he wanted the boy
After all.
There was nothing I could do.
He was not my child.
He was my brother.

This house
Is
Empty.
Three years
Since he's been gone.
My father says nothing
And still he grieves.
My mother's mind was broken
And she will grieve forever.
I never cried.
I tried once.
My grief was either too deep
Or not deep enough
For tears.
My parents say
I can't grieve
As hard
As they do,
For he was not my child.
He was my brother.

I still have pictures of him,
The Angel,
In my photo album.
When people see them,
Some of them
Ignorantly,
Innocently,
And seriously ask
"Was he yours?"
Though hard sad memories
Come back to me,
I smile at the echo
The sweet echo
The echo of his laughter.
"No," I say with love,
"He was not my child.
He was my brother."