My Honorary Sister

While many girls have sisters, I have Randi. Although she has always had a place in my life, I would never take her for granted. Our friendship started in a different way than most. We met at an orphanage in Quzhou when we were each about a week old, Randi, born May 10, and myself, May 15. When we talk to other people about meeting each other before our parents, they have a hard time understanding this. The orphanage in which we lived was a small institution, and even though it did not have much money to function on, both of us were taken good care of. We were put up for adoption and at six months old, both of us had been matched with American parents. At this point, our time together was most likely to come to a close, but surprisingly enough, our parents were working with the same adoption agency and got their adoption referrals on the same day. It turned out that Randi’s adoptive parents not only lived in California like my own, but lived in the same town as well. The friendship between Randi and me and between our two families did not end once we were adopted. As a toddler, I can remember going over to Randi’s house to watch TV or Randi and I going to the pumpkin patch together. There are countless photographs of us together, playing on my kitchen floor, baking cookies, exchanging toys. Our parents made sure that we would stay in contact, even though we went to different schools as children. When we were four, I vaguely remember Randi coming over to play, showing me how to do cartwheels in my front room since she had been taking gymnastics. Today, she is still a gymnast and I still do not know how to do a cartwheel. As we entered grade school, we made new friends and became busy with our different sports and hobbies, but every Wednesday after school we would see each other at our private Chinese lessons. The lessons mostly consisted of us laughing at the other pronouncing the words and drawing pictures when we should be practicing our strokes. We had met other families with children adopted from China and had become good friends with them as well, although Randi and I still remained close. When we were ten, we even received the chance to travel back to China together. Upon entering middle school, Randi and I stopped taking Chinese lessons and saw less of each other as homework, school, and other activities got in the way. Nevertheless, we still were able to see each other every couple of months. Even as we grew older, I still looked forward to seeing her because we always had so much fun together. Currently, Randi and I continue to be good friends and I consider her to be my honorary sister. Now that we are in high school, attending the same school, we have new issues to deal with, but I will always be there for her and she has shown to me that she is just as dependable. There are not many people who can say someone has stuck by them for as long as Randi has. She has always been nearby to me and she will always have an important place in my life and in my heart.