Give Thanks...For Restoration

 Sometime, between last week and Memorial Day, our parent's headstone was damaged. My niece noticed the damage. My brother, as the family's spokesperson, contacted the city and thankfully, the damage will be repaired.

Us kids did not know this for years, but our mother did not care for the headstone. In the mid-1970s the city cemetery had a policy--no raised headstones. So, when my father passed away, we abided by the city's rules. I'm not sure when, but afterword the city changed their policy. Raised headstones were once agin allowed. Our mother talked about getting a new headstone for years, perhaps when she passed away.

After my mother was diagnosed with cancer and that cancer progressed, she knew her time was short. Just like the city, she also changed her mind as to the headstone. She just wanted us to keep it--no need spending more money on something she didn't like, especially since she won't be around to see it. We ended up honoring her wishes.

My parents adopted three children...I'm the middle one. My father passed away when I was young so my mother ended up raising three children under ten as a single mother. They're both gone now and the headstone is a symbol of their lives. If I had the means, I would build a mausoleum at the site to their memory. This, of course, would be something of which my mother would not approve.

The stone will be replaced. I wish we could bring back our parents just as easy. But one day, they'll be restored, as will we all. It's a promise given and one I believe will become a promise made. I'm so incredibly grateful for those two people who made the choice to bring three babies into their lives and become a family. I know my life was forever changed by their selfless act. Miss you, mom and dad. Glad the stone that marks your graves will be restored, too.

Give Thanks...Christmas

 In November many posted articles and sayings, photographs, thoughts, and memories with the hashtag, #GiveThanks, me included. I enjoyed the experience of not only realizing amazing things in my life, but sharing them with others, that I decided to keep the tradition going. Sundays were the day I chose to use the phrase, #GiveThanks.

I didn't know how long I would keep the tradition going. I wrote for two or three weeks on Sundays, then I forgot a week ago. I wrote about how much I enjoyed watching different variations of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I forgot to give thanks, though I am thankful for that timeless story.

This week, how can I not give thanks for Christmas?

I don't know what I did to warrant the blessings I've been given. This past week I was surrounded by family, good health, all the food we could eat, shelter, and anything else a person could want. We tried to make the day special for our kids and we were fortunate enough to have all our children home on Christmas Eve. The above present was given to us by my newly-found half sister. Finding her is one of the best presents anyone could ever ask for.

I'm sure this was a difficult holiday for millions, and I hope things improve for them. I hope also that people can find a promise of better days ahead. 

Some thoughts that ran through my mind Thursday night--I remembered as a child how difficult it was to sleep Christmas Eve night. Oh, what promise the new day held! Eventually I would fall asleep, sometimes awakening before anyone else and I 'd have to wait for the family to wake up. I re-lived those emotions through my own children. Now, they're teenagers and older, no longer do they share that innocence of the holiday. Hopefully, we'll be able to experience that again if/when the grandkids show up.

The title of the song says it all, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. For me, that's been so true. This year, I'm giving thanks for Christmas. I pray you've had a good day as well, a good Christmas Day.

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.

Finding A Sister...I Never Knew I Had

When you're adopted--and the adoption records are sealed--you grow up with questions, and "what ifs" and what might have beens.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I can't imagine any adopted person not feeling this way, at least a little. For me, those feelings were always on the back-burner. Sure, they'd creep into the front of my thoughts from time to time, but my adopted family never gave me an excuse to need to find my birth family. I always thought, maybe one day, I might find those people responsible for my existence. I also thought that if I ever did come in contact with them, then it would be "meant to be."

After my mother passed more than a decade ago, those back-burner thoughts spent more time front and center. Then, for Christmas years ago my wife bought me an Ancestry.com DNA kit. I wondered if by taking the test, would questions be answered, "what ifs" figured out, might have beens realized?

I thought I might find my birth parents, or maybe their families, since my parents may no longer be living.

I never thought I'd find a sister, a sister who was also put up for adoption a few years after me, a sister who submitted a DNA test for the same reason--to find her parents, and maybe their families.

We found each other.

Last night we spent an hour texting each other for the first time. It was, in a word, fascinating. I won't include what we discussed or what we discovered--it's too personal, but even though neither of us found parents or siblings of parents, we both found another person on this big earth, people neither knew existed. It's a wonderful, surreal, exhilarating, and a little lonely experience. I'm glad we found each other--at least a couple of questions answered.