Thinking About My Parents...On My Birthday

As I drove to work this morning I thought about my parents. I don't know what other people think about on their birthdays, but for me, I think about them a lot. It makes sense, especially since I was adopted. I also think about my birth parents from time to time, but then my thoughts always drift to the two people who made the decision to take me into not only their home, but their hearts.

I continued on through the dark and light traffic. I wondered what it must be like to go through the process of adoption. I know a lot has changed since the mid-1960s when it comes to adoption. I don't believe there existed a thing called an "open adoption" back then. Maybe if my birth parents wanted to, they could have kept in touch with my adopting paretns, but I think that's more of a modern construct.

So, since the parents who raised me were not at the hospital. They didn't now I was coming. From what I've been told, they got a call saying I was available and they left right then and drove straight to the hospital to pick me up. That sounds so foreign now. I wonder which is better, not knowing the birth parents, not forming a relationship with them. I can only speak from my perspective. I never felt slighted because I didn't know them. For me, I never wanted to necessarily know who they were, and thanks to my parents, I never blamed them--or my adoptive parents--for any reason. It was just the way things were.

My parents brought me home, fed me, clothed me, accepted me as one of theirs. I've always been proud of my last name. It's the only last name that I've ever had, the only name I've been called. They accepted the responsibility to keep me safe, keep me sheltered, protected from all enemies, real or imagined. And I'll forever love them for it.

They're both gone, my parents. One I knew very little, the other who became both mother and father to me and my siblings. My wife and I have four children. We love them more than anything else in the world. They are not just spiritually connected to us, but also by blood. I've always felt that connection to my parents, even though DNA would say otherwise. But what does it know, anyway?

I pulled into work this morning thankful for those two people who risked everything for the most defenseless person possible. And I feel even more blessed on the day I was born fifty-two years ago. Thank you Harry and Lois. I'll never be able to fully repay you. I can only give you my heart.