Forever Family

As an adoptive parent, you expect it.  You know it will come, but still you hope that—maybe, just maybe— it won't. You arm yourself with a well-thought-out-Good-Housekeeping-Seal-of-Approval-style response which you imagine delivering calmly and confidently. You speculate a little, you wonder about the circumstances that will prompt it. Maybe it will be delivered in anger: perhaps tearfully. Maybe it will come during a quiet, shared moment while you're baking cookies or raking leaves. But come it will.   "You're not my REAL mother." Ah, yes.   She says it calmly; it is almost a question, reflective and curious. The words hang between us for an instant, and I register a mild thump as they land. I blink. I move closer and look deeply into those puzzled eyes whose dark elegance betrays our differences. We have talked about adoption since she was an infant—this is something else. This isn't defiance. Or anger. This is longing. We talk about what it means to be a real mother. We talk about China. I say the things I believe, and know in my heart to be true: I am not your biological mother, but I am your real mother. We are a family, forever.     She talks about her Chinese mother. Does she wear a red dress? Together we imagine what she might look like: her face, her smile, her dark hair. Where she might live. There is a need, a desperation, to know. I understand this longing. I, too, dream of this woman—I see her slender silhouette in my imagination, her face a shadow. I dream of holding her hand, of telling her we think of her often, and that we will never forget her.  That my daughter is as real a daughter to me as any biological child goes without saying. But ours is a family narrative woven not of biology, but of an invisible red thread that connected us and brought us together.   There will be many more of these conversations in the years ahead. But for now, she is satisfied. She drifts off quietly to sleep, lost in dreams—I imagine—of a woman with long dark hair and a red dress.

 

Comments

[Karyn Mitchell]

Thanks for sharing!

[Bonnie Del Bianco]

I've just spent the most wonderful half hour drinking coffee and catching up on some entries I'd missed. When I read your blog I hear it in your voice and there is much smiling and laughing on my part. And a lot of contemplation and little catch in my throat sometimes too. Love this one. (and really wish i'd kept all those mixed tapes). xo b.