Give Thanks...Day 7--Adoption

 

Day 7

Adoption

I grew up always knowing I was adopted. It wasn't weird--on the contrary, it was the most normal thing in the world. Both my siblings were adopted--it's just the way things were. 

As an adoptee, my childhood was pretty much like everyone else, at least, it was for me. My parents were my parents, my siblings were my siblings. I grew up knowing I was loved and figured my birth parents made a great decision allowing someone else to raise me. I was brought into a large family, and by large, I mean large. My dad was one of twelve, my mom one of three. I was surrounded by cousins, people I love to this day.

We grew up in the west, with open skies and adventures. We hiked the Tetons most summers and sledded down our mountain most winters. Looking back, it's hard for me to imagine a better place to be raised and better people to do the raising.

Then, things changed as I've grown. I'm still so grateful for my parents and incredible family, but as I get older, thoughts of my birth parents have risen to the surface. I've wondered what they were like, questions I would ask them if given the chance. Seeing as how they would both be in the 80s now and possibly not even with us anymore, the chances I may meet them dims a little each day. It's okay if I never meet them in this life. I'll have the opportunity later (hopefully, much later).

When I look back on my life, everything hinges on that one decision, that one action that placed me with Harry and Lois Taylor. Everyone I know is a direct result of that action. Everything I've ever done is affected by it. We can speculate what my life would have been like had things turned out differently. I'd like to think I would be loved and have had a great life, but that's all academic. It didn't. We can't go back.

And I don't think I'd want to, if that were even possible. 

I am grateful for adoption, for the opportunity people have to raise children who are unable to do so otherwise. It literally means everything for me and I thank God that it happened to me.