Truth be told, I do not watch much television. The best shows either air long past my bedtime or appear on cable channels that I usually am too impatient to locate. But one of my favorite shows is “This is Us,” a drama that brilliantly chronicles the lives of Jack and Rebecca and those of their children—Kate, Kevin and Randall—who were all born on the same day.

Kate and Kevin are the two surviving siblings of Rebecca’s triple birth. Randall was claimed by Jack and Rebecca within hours after Rebecca’s traumatic delivery and the loss of the third triplet. They chose to adopt Randall, an African American orphan, upon seeing him in the hospital’s nursery.