We Don't Look Alike

​ Every morning I wake up, I find it easier to appreciate how lucky I was to have the type of childhood I did being raised on an island in Hawai’i. First, I should tell you I am a love child, defined by Webster’s dictionary as a child whose father and mother are not married to each other when the child is born. My mother, a native Hawaiian with Chinese ancestry was married to a white man and had 6 children before me. My father, a black man from Missouri was married to a black woman with 4 children before me. My parents met while my father was in the Army and stationed in Hawai’i.

My parents had an affair. It doesn’t sound as beautiful as saying they created a love child, but they did. My mother left her husband and raised the 7 of us on her own for a few years and my father eventually left his wife. I met my father when I was 5 years old and before I knew it they were getting married. I remember being in the wedding and not really understanding what was going on.

My father took on the role of raising all 7 of us, he never liked to use the word 'step-father.' He was our father...our dad. It was uncomfortable calling someone dad since I didn’t grow up saying that like my brother and sisters did, I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable it was for them as well. Although we had different fathers, my siblings never treated me differently and didn’t allow anyone else to either; family, friends, strangers, no one. I was always the baby, or their baby sister. My father felt the same, they were all his children. But I was different, I didn’t look like them.

I didn’t realize how different I was until I was a teenager and telling someone in school about my sister Barb who was 4 years older than me. They insisted that Barb could not be my sister because we didn’t look alike. She was white and I was black. I had short nappy hair and she had long blonde hair. All I remember at that time was thinking you’re right, we don’t look alike! I went home and cried to my father about not looking like the rest of my family. Instead of consoling me, he laughed! He said almost hysterically, “Do me and your mama look alike?” I stopped crying enough to say “No!” then he laughed again and said “So why would you and your sister look alike, we are all different. You are related by blood, not by skin and hair!”

I will never forget that and giggle every time I think about it. That conversation has followed me my whole life and allowed me to look at people as people and not as skin, hair, race or religion. Because of that conversation I was able to meet a lot of great people from all walks of life in school, the military, my career, friendships, and acquaintances. I am raising my children to do the same and pray you do as well because in the end…or in the beginning, depending on how you look at, it we are all related by blood.

-Queen P