When I was a kid the word adoption almost seemed like a dirty word, uttered in hushed tones as to not be overheard. Friends of mine who knew they were adopted seemed mysterious, with unknown origins; their stories whispered among family members. There were also the ghost children; babies whose existence was erased from family tree when offered for adoption. The miracle of their births and the sacrifices their mothers made in the hopes for better lives for their children were filed away and stamped “top-secret”. I guess there was fear that adopted children would confuse these acts of selflessness as rejection and even shame. And frankly, with no other source of information but their own imaginations, it’s not surprising. Thankfully, adoption doesn’t have to be that way.
Our family is blessed to have embraced adoption in a much different way. Eighteen years ago, when our daughter, Maggie offered her newborn son up for adoption, we were given the opportunity to not only know who his new parents would be but also to take an active role in his life. Dave and I became Nana and Papa to little Seth and when his parents adopted a second child, Caleb, we embraced him as our own as well.
This past weekend we all came together to celebrate Seth’s graduation for high school. When the boys were younger, the extended clan gathered often for birthdays and holidays but since our move out of the area and the kids growing into their teen years, the big gatherings have become more of an annual event, and limited in attendance. On Saturday, we were all there; grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends, neighbors and best of all – birth mothers.
Over the course of the day, I had several people who I didn’t know that well tell me how impressed they were by the way our family had come together through adoption. As we began to share our story, we found ourselves filling in pieces of each other’s stories that we hadn’t known. It was a time of tears, laughs and tremendous love and a gift to be able to recall those events and be reminded of how much we have grown to love each other.
Inside the card I gave Seth for his graduation, I wrote not only how proud we were of him and how much we loved him but also that for me, he is a living symbol of God’s promise that if we just trust in Him, all will be well. And it has been.