Thicker than Water: A Memoir

by Kerry Washington

“My therapist told me the cruelest thing you can ever do to another human being is to label their suspicions as false when you know them to be true.” His therapist explained that when you teach a person to believe that their internal truth is a lie, you take from them the very thing that is most important to each of us—our ability to know and trust ourselves.

the idea that whatever I felt for that man would not negate what I felt for the dad sitting beside me.

What is clear to me now is that I chose my dad. I didn’t choose my donor as the man to raise me; I didn’t choose his family. I chose my mom and dad; I chose this life, and these lessons. Even though at times it’s been painful, I can now see the beauty in all of it. This life and these parents have made me exactly who I am. And I would not change a thing.

And regardless of whether my dad’s blood runs through my veins or not, I am of him. He is my dad.

Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood.

He may not have been the biological father, but in their journey together, he was the dad.

I will not let go of the man who raised me.

What I’m learning to do in my life is accept the void, let my dad who raised me be the center of his story, let my biological donor be the center of his, while I focus on being the center of my own story and seeking a deeper truth for myself.