Currently my wife and I are in the middle of Adopting another child and have been faced with the challenge of keeping his story his. You see he is an infant obviously can’t talk and is honestly one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. But because he is up for adoption and I am kind of an open guy people keep asking me about his background, his medical stuff and various other things that nobody would dare ask an adult unless we had a deep and close relationship with them. The truth is it’s his story and it’s not mine to tell.
What I can tell you about is parts of my adoption story. You see I was adopted when I was three days old to an awesome family in Kirkland Washington. My Birthmother (whom I now consider one of my best friends) was a young girl who just wasn’t ready for what I had in store and so she put me up for adoption, but anything surrounding that is her story. My parents were open about the fact that I was adopted and we constantly talked about what that meant and how much they loved me and that in their eyes my brother, their biological son and I were the same in their eyes. I know this to be true to this day and feel closer to my parents now than I ever have (they are some of my other best friends.) Now here comes the hard part. When you are adopted, no matter how good or bad the system is you tend to feel a disconnect from your own story. Many of us as children imagine our futures and whether will be an astronaut or a police man or in my daughters case a fairy princess with a light sabre. But those of us who are adopted also imagine our past. For me I imagined the worst possible scenario in my head. That my birthparents had turned to drugs and alcohol and were in prison and had made all the wrong choices in life and therefore no matter what I found if I ever met them, I would not be disappointed. I struggled through elementary school and even in to high school trying to figure out who I was. You see the other part of my mind would struggle with the fact that though my parents loved me they didn’t look like me. All my friends looked like their brothers and sisters or their Moms and Dads. Little similarities that many of them never noticed but I sure did. I would sit at their dinner tables looking around and noticing the hand gestures and facial expressions that had been handed down from generation to generation not just through environment but through those shared genes. This was hard for me. I started to try and mimic my parent’s actions and then started copying others making up in my head again what I thought to be mine. Then as I entered in to adulthood and married the most amazing woman this world has ever seen God gave me a gift. His name is Nathaniel. For the first time someone looked like me. He moved his hands like me and to this day I can see bits and pieces of myself in him. And then came Manny and then Charlie, and then Alex. If you ever ask me who they look like I’ll say me. Truth is most of them take after their mom, those Mennonite genes are strong suckers. And then came my buddy Hayden. We adopted Hayden and he came into our home 3 and a half years ago and changed our lives forever. The funniest part is that everyone says he looks the most like me. Hayden for me is a constant reminder of all the amazing kids out there who have their own story and are just looking for a family to share it with. You see I was not an easy kid to raise. I took out my emotions and my struggles on many people especially my parents. But they were there to love and support me no matter what. I hope that I can be as good a parent to all my kids. You see whether they are adopted or not my job as a parent is to help my kids to be able to find, live, and articulate their story. Not to the whole world but to those they will love and those they will parent in the future. We all have a story uniquely given to us by God and in my experience he takes those stories and puts people in our lives who have similar stories. They may be older or younger but they are either experiencing what we will experience or what we already have and the blessing is that we can walk through life together as our stories intertwine with one another ultimately creating HIS story. So if you ask me about my kids and their lives and struggles and triumphs and I reply that’s their story, don’t take it as an insult just know that I’m a proud Dad that loves his family and will protect them with every ounce of my being till the day God decides to take me home.
