Some thoughts on adoption

As defined in the dictionary, to adopt is to take and rear the child of other parents as one's own, specifically by a formal legal act.  Adoption has deep significant personal meaning for me.  I am an adopted child.  It turns out that November is National Adoption Month, which I was not aware of until a few days ago - clearly, Hallmark has failed miserably in creating some kind of card or pseudo-holiday (e.g. Grandparents' Day) for said month.  Or maybe it's that I don't give being adopted a second thought.

Due to the legalization of abortion and the acceptance and glamorization of single motherhood ("16 and Pregnant" - I'm talking to you), adoption is not as widespread today as it was when I was adopted in the middle of the 1960's (thank you, sexual revolution, for hastening my arrival).  Adoption was a very different thing then.  The vast majority of adoptions were closed - the birth parents signed away all rights and had no idea to whom their child was going.  The adoptive parent had no idea about the birth parents, nor would the adopted child.  My adoption was a closed one.  And all these years later, I am totally cool with that fact.

I can't remember a time not knowing I was adopted.  Nor do I remember when I was told.  It clearly was not an earth-shattering event for me but I have always remembered how being adopted was explained to me.  As my parents told me, we were meant to be a family from before we were born.  Once here in this earthly life, for whatever reason, my parents were unable to have children, so another way had to be found for me, as well as my younger sister who is also adopted, to get to our family.  That way was through another woman who served as the vessel that brought me to this life.  Once I was born, two days later I was placed into the arms of my parents and the family that we were meant to be was under way.  This was would replay itself when my sister joined our family.  This explanation made complete sense to me then and it still does today. 

I honestly do not recall fretting much, if ever, about being adopted.  My parents, my honorable father, who I miss terribly, and my mother are my parents.  I am their first-born son.  The unknown woman who gave birth to me is someone whom I honor for bringing me to life.  I owe her an eternal debt of gratitude and were I ever to meet her in this life, I'd say thank you for giving me the life that you did by giving me up.  I've had an incredible life.

Adoption gave me amazing parents, a family, experiences and a way of life that is a part of the fabric of who I am to this day.  I'm grateful for God's plan that got me to where I was supposed to be all those many years ago.  I admire those that choose to give a child up for adoption.  It is an act of love that can hardly be comprehended.  I honor those who choose to adopt a child.  Words cannot adequately express what that act, so simply defined by the dictionary, does for that child that becomes theirs.  So let me just say with a full heart, thank you.