How Has Adoption Touched Your Life?

National Adoption Month celebrates adoptive families.  Primarily the focus is on promoting adoption through foster care, and celebrating adoption through foster care.  Through the month, I will post more information about adoption through foster care...

But today is about getting to know YOU.

How has adoption touched your life?





Are you an adoptive parent?  Adoptee?  Birth parent?

Long sidenote:  Every time I use the term birth parent on this blog, I get comments from people offended by my use of that term.  This is (among other things) an adoptive family blog, read by people touched by all facets of adoption, including my own children, and other loving parents who have placed children for adoption.  Our family's heart embraces all the people who love or have loved our children.  The term birth parent has been chosen as the common, politically correct term for parents who place children for adoption (inadequate as it may be to describe the immense love and sacrifice of parents who place children for adoption).  Note to would-be disparaging commenters (Is that even a word?)  I don't publish comments that would potentially hurt anyone, especially other members of the adoption triad.  There are other forums for that.

So...getting on with the subject at hand:  You might be thinking, "Mary, I'm not an adoptive parent, adoptee, or birth parent.  Adoption hasn't really touched my life."  Really?  I think adoption touches everyone's life.  You might know someone who is adopted.  Your children might have friends who are adopted.  In a very Jimmy-Stewart-"It's-A-Wonderful-Life" way, how is your life touched by those people?  What if that child who plays with your child hadn't been adopted?  What if that friend you know wasn't adopted?  You might even know someone who has chosen to place a child for adoption.

Now it's your turn.

How has adoption touched your life?


Please share.  I think we learn and grow from other people's stories.

You can share by commenting, or by emailing me at maryjarman@hotmail.com.  Also through the month, we will feature the stories of different members of the adoption triad...  Can't wait to introduce you!

Sunday Sharing

All November, Sunday Sharing is going to be about gratitude and giving thanks.

"In every thing give athanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."  1 Thessalonians 5:18

I remember during my 2nd year of college going through the motions of classes the final day before going home for Thanksgiving break.  I walked into my biology class, and the professor, Dr. Lyle Lowder, told everyone to put away our notebooks and not worry about taking notes that day.  He told us was devoting that particular day's lecture to talking with us about a life lesson that would serve us all well--that of gratitude.

Apparently this was something he did every year prior to Thanksgiving in his classes.  He was famous for his mini life lectures (and in another class I took from him later on, he talked to us about marriage).  I wish I could have recorded his words, because it was one of those times that something someone said sank deep into my heart, and changed me as a human being.

Sadly, I don't remember any of his words, but I do remember being pulled from thoughts about myself, my life, and my pursuits (during perhaps what is one of the most self-oriented times of life) and beginning to think of all those to whom I owed thanks.  I remember thinking for the first time of gratitude as something that goes full circle--that everything we have comes from God, even the gifts, kindness, and service we receive from others.  At the same time, everything we do with our time, talents, and life, gives back to God, in some small measure, by paying it forward, and allowing others to feel His love through us.  Meanwhile, we continue to receive daily gifts of abundance from God, and can never fully repay Him.  All things, every day are gifts from Him.

Needless to say, what I had viewed as just a break from school where I could hang out at home and eat turkey and pie, became much more that year, and in the years since, I've continued to feel a reverence for the Thanksgiving season.

So when I say Thanksgiving is huge at our house, I mean huge in importance.  It's not the same kind of celebration as birthdays and Christmas, but we do what we can to reserve this time of year for giving thanks.  I love Christmas as much as the next guy, and I hope that in emphasizing Thanksgiving, no one gets the impression I'm a grinch...  It does really bother me that Christmas items are on display in the store in October.  I need my Thanksgiving, people!  It just feels a little rushed and commercialized when we see Christmas things showing up so soon...

So without further delay, we'll get on with giving thanks.  Finally today (after a sort of late start) we got out our Thanksgiving jars:

And we started adding kernels to the empty jar.  Everyone (even the dogs) got a turn to say what they were thankful for today.

Tim's parents are home after a temple mission to Nauvoo and of course we are all thankful to see them again.  Being together as a family just feels different with them here.

Other things that made the list:  family, our home, wrestling and sports (uhhhh...wonder who said that), church and being able to worship there, and time together as a family...there were others too, but I don't remember them all right now.

So now that we got the list going, we invite you to join us.  Please share sometime this month, in comments or in your own blog, things that you're thankful for.  If you share in your blog, feel free to leave the link in your comment.

Diwali Festival 2011

November is National Adoption Awareness Month.

Coincidentally, it is also the month of celebrating Diwali, and the Krishna Temple about an hour south of where we live was hosting a Diwali festival so...

Food

Dancing

Wishes for the new year

More wishes

Fireworks

And of course what Diwali and adoption have in common is this beautiful girl...

Gabby hasn't been super interested until recently in anything to do with her native Indian culture.  My guess is it has to do with adjustment, assimilation, fitting in...

Then we saw the Diwali Festival sign at the Indian store a few weeks ago and she wanted to go so we put it in the calendar.  Today was the big day and starting last night there were a list of Gabby related reasons not to go to this festival...

"My throat hurts..."

"I think I'm going to throw up..."

"My tailbone hurts."  (If you're a parent, you know you can't make this stuff up.  She fell playing Just Dance on Wii.)

But in spite of nerves, we went...

Admittedly it was a bit odd hiking up a hill of sagebrush in the freezing cold November air to the very Indian looking temple at the top of the hill, but once inside, we followed the crowd, found the food, found the dancing, made some new year wishes, and enjoyed the fireworks.

And Miss Gabby was fine...no physical complaints all evening.  And now she's really sure she wants to take Indian dancing lessons, and wants to go back soon (good thing there's a Hindu temple closer to our house).  

Then tonight when she was getting ready for bed, Gabby said the most amazing thing.  "You know what, Mom?  When I was watching those girls dance, I thought that Indian girls really are beautiful."  Then she said, "And I'm beautiful just like them."  

Wow.  And that, folks, is what it's all about.  Adoption is both roots and wings, and tonight I realized that one little evening celebrating an Indian festival in the cold November air gave Gabby both...or at least access to both.

I'm so, so happy to be an adoptive parent.

Heavy Heart

I started this post rambling just because I needed to, then I got busy and distracted, and am just coming back of it, trying to make sense of some crazy feelings after a mixed up week.

Tomorrow my aunt and uncle will bury their 33 year young son, whose death leaves many who love him behind...his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews...many who will miss his kind heart.

And so it is that right in the middle of kicking off the month with the blogging theme of Thanksgiving and adoption, death, grief, and loss rear their ugly heads once again.

This week I realized again how too familiar this theme is becoming...

So familiar, in fact, that tonight when Tim left for the cabin with the boys to go fishing tomorrow, I must have told him twenty times to be careful driving, that there was a storm coming, to be careful on the water...

So familiar that sometimes the space between here and there seems too real, and too close, but so, so far away at the same time...like anyone, anytime could cross into that place where they don't return (at least not for a long, long time) and I'd miss them and be lonely all over again...  Because in the past 4 1/2 years that's happened 7 times, and before that in my life, I only ever knew (really well) one other person who died young, and of these 7 deaths in the past 4 1/2 years, they've all been too, too young.

Then (as is the case with my cousin's death) I just think about distant memories of knowing them, because it's been a lot of years since we've actually seen each other, but thinking about that reminds me of what it feels like to lose someone, and of the heartache I know his parents feel, and his siblings, and those close to him, and my heart aches for them.

There's just something about loss that makes it all new again, even though it's (sort of) tucked away in a corner of my heart.

It makes me a little grumpy and crazy (ask my husband and kids), and makes it hard to concentrate...

And I try so hard to make it not a big deal because for kids who've known so much death and loss, I don't want to make this their burden...

But it becomes that anyway.  I'm not sure how, but it just does, because in this week Joie has had melt-downs that end in, "I don't know why I keep doing this, Mom," and I want to tell her why (that just the mere passing mention of someone else dying does to her what it does to me and brings it all close to the surface again) but then there's this other part of me that just thinks I'm making a big deal out of nothing, and this will all pass...

And we'll get out our Thanksgiving jar with our corn kernels and say what we're thankful for, and celebrate adoption (both of which got moved to the back burner this week because even though I meant well, I just didn't want to wrap my brain around it).

Yup.  Tomorrow we'll get on with life, but for right here, right now, my heart will be just a little heavy, and I'll mourn with those who are mourning, and know that even though one day this will all be ok, right here, right now, it just hurts.

November

Two things are on our minds this month:

This:

And this:

We all know about Thanksgiving in November.  November is also National Adoption Awareness Month.

We realize there are already Christmas items appearing in stores, but we've always made a big deal out of Thanksgiving at our house.  Tim's parents started a tradition of going around the table on Thanksgiving Day and putting corn kernels in a cup for each thing they're thankful for that year.  We added our own twist to that tradition when our children were younger, and it's a tradition that lives on.  Instead of doing this just Thanksgiving Day, we do it daily during the month of November at  our house, filling a jar with kernels of corn as everyone names things they are thankful for.  (For more on previous years of our tradition, see here.)

Also (just in case you haven't noticed) adoption is kind of a big deal around our house also.  Last night we kicked off National Adoption Awareness month with a family dinner of chicken and rice (representing Marshall Islands, where Megan is from), and dosa and tarka dhal to represent Gabby and India.  Joie thought we needed an American twist to represent her as the domestic adoptee in our family, and suggested adding french fries to the menu.  While that didn't happen, we did roast pumpkin seeds.  Kind of American...  Right?

So look for posts on both topics this month...along with all the other random things that come our way.  

As we share what we're grateful for, feel free to add comments about what you're thankful for, or take us to a post on your blog about gratitude or Thanksgiving traditions your family shares.

Also, look for more information and posts about adoption, including ways to celebrate adoption, support adoption, etc.  We look forward to having you join us!