During the summer of 2015 I was given the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica and volunteer at several places over the course of two months. It changed my life. The most impactful event was when my group visited an orphanage. The kids there were ages infant through eighteen. I met a girl named Liliana. Liliana had been in the orphanage since she was born. She was now seventeen, approaching her eighteenth birthday. I asked her what it was like to live here her entire life and whether she wished that she lived with a family instead. Her response surprised me. She said that the orphanage was her home. The other kids there were her brothers and sisters. The caretakers were her parents. She said your family isn’t the people who gave birth to you.
