Lisha Ibraheem

When Dad and Papa pick me up from school, I always know heads will turn. It’s not subtle. Whispers, side-eyes, a few smirks. I used to feel them like tiny stings, but now? Now I just smile. Because I know better.

I’ve been living in London for ten years now. My parents adopted me when I was four. Before that, there was only the orphanage—a dim, blurred memory of crowded rooms, unfamiliar voices, and the overwhelming sense of being one among too many. My real parents—my first parents—were taken from me in South Sudan. Rebels stormed our village, and everything I knew disappeared in a single, violent night. But that was then. This is now.

Now, I have two fathers. Dad is a doctor, always smelling of antiseptic and coffee. Papa is also a doctor, but he’s the one who hums while he cooks, whose laughter fills up the whole house. They already had a son, my brother Leo, who was born with a condition that means he’s in a wheelchair. He’s the funniest person I know, always rolling into a room with a joke.

At school, things haven’t always been easy. Some kids love to find reasons to poke at others. I’ve heard it all. That I’m different because I’m Black. That my family isn’t “normal” because I have two dads. That my brother is “weird” because he can’t walk. But I don’t care.

I really don’t. Because here’s what they don’t understand: people who try to make others feel small are the ones who are the smallest inside. And I? I am not small.

I’ve already lived through more than most of them could imagine. The kind of loss that doesn’t just knock you down but buries you. And yet, here I am. With a family who loves me, with a home that feels safe. With a brother who makes me laugh so hard my ribs hurt, and two parents who show me, every single day, what it means to love without limits.

So, when the whispers start up again, when people look at us like we’re something unusual, I just glance at Leo. He raises his eyebrow, I smirk back, and then we both start laughing. Because we already won the only lottery that matters: the one that gives you people who see you and love you exactly as you are.