Today I made the connection and I thought I might share it with the typosphere.
I was adopted as an infant. I consider myself very lucky to have been adopted by an amazing family. My life has been charmed in many ways and I couldn't be more grateful. Even so, I always had a sense of curiosity about my birth family.
My adopted parents (I call them that only for a sense of clarity in this story) were always honest about my adoption. So I knew I had been chosen and I also knew there was someone out there who chose to give me up. As I grew older, the need to know more about my birth family grew inside me.
When I was adopted (late 60s), agencies provided adopting parents with a simple biography of the birth parents. So, when I started asking my mom questions about my birth parents, she sighed and said "We only know a little bit." Then she shared this document with me:
I can't tell you how many hours I spent pouring over every detail of this typewritten script. After a while, when people who knew me asked about my adoption, I was able to recite these few paragraphs verbatim. It was all I had of my biological ancestry.
The story of my search for my birth parents is long and, luckily for me, coincides with the rise of the Internet. The short version is I am reunited with my birth mom and have a very nice relationship with her and the rest of her family. I have met my birth father and enjoyed his company, though he doesn't seem to have room for me in his life (which is sad but understandable.)
Tying this back to the theme of the blog. I'm delighted my parents saved all the paperwork from my adoption. Holding hand-typed and hand-written documents that mean so much is a very emotional experience. Although I'm glad we have migrated away from paper records, I find it sad people won't have this experience in the future.
Ah, a Similac baby. me too :D
ReplyDeleteI think most of us were!
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