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I was adopted by a family that I will always call my own. Well matched by intention, we look enough alike- eyes that are brown, skin the same medium pale shade, our bodies extra long –above average in height. We look enough alike that strangers do not see our underlying differences.
From the beginning, this family of mine taught me that I was chosen. They had chosen adoption to complete their family, a baby to love and call their own. I was their chosen baby, and this I always knew.
With a child’s curiosity, I could not resist always searching new and unfamiliar faces for my own specific sameness. The length of my face, the line of my nose, the shape of my eyes, knowing that somewhere there must exist, someone who looked like me.
As an adult, I found my biological mother. She sent a photograph, sharing with me the success of her summer garden, but it was the detail of her face that was consuming.
And when we finally met, I could see the same color brown- dark and deep in her eyes, a reddish brown in her hair. I saw the familiar roundness of her cheek as she lightly brushed hers against mine, my own heart shaped lips as she kissed me goodbye. Knowing that she was soft and kind and yet there was nothing there to bind us together.
When we parted, she gave me a heavy brown book, its glossy well-fingered pages filled with paintings by Renoir. She explained hesitantly that she had received this book twenty five years before. I easily understood its cherished importance by the way she tenderly placed it within in my open hands. Inside a note from my birthfather. “ In the interest of love.” he wrote, and that is how she led me to him.
At his request, I sent him a letter. He asked me to visit him, and I did. The first time we met he looked long and hard into my face. Later he told me he looked at me that day and saw his own mother’s face. His eyes were not warm, but strong and compelling. I found comfort in that.
We sat side by side, looking out on the vast, tranquil blue of the Pacific Ocean . Our eyes shielded from the sun, touching each other only with words. He needed to know I was okay. He had chosen to life his life without me. Did his choice long ago hurt me? His question hung heavy between us as I described details of my life and he told me about his.
The afternoon grew long, and we moved into the kitchen to sit at the long pine table that was centered on the white tile floor. Fresh flowers and a trailing plant of rosemary spilled over from brightly colored pots lining the windowsill. The sea breeze came in the open window, carrying the fresh essence of rosemary across the room, the afternoon sun intensifying its scent and casting a glow upon the yellow kitchen walls. He talked of his trials as a boy, immigrating to this country, learning a new language , his longing and determinations as he emerged from the shy, scared boy he once was.
I told him of my own childhood, that I always knew I was adopted, the separateness I often felt, although I was so badly wanted. My own determination and drive defining my difference, resulting in my own success.
That was the start of our story. In the beginning it moved slowly, like a book you chose because it looked intriguing. And then once you settled in and began reading, you just weren’t captured and carried away. The story of my father and I, sputtered and stalled, and just like a book, I set it aside, our place carefully marked.
Years passed before we found ourselves together again, this time leaning into one another in comfortable conversation. The cancer that had ravaged my father’s body had been beaten, and there was no remaining evidence from the struggle. His eyes were clearer than I remembered, explained perhaps by the detoxifying fruit juices that replaced his habit of afternoon and evening bottles of wine. Myself, now a mother of two young children, preferring a hot cup of coffee in the late afternoon instead of the cold glass of chardonnay.
Our words came quickly, filling the space.
I grew to understand what his eyes could say, words were replaced by meaningful looks, the shorthand used by people who really know each other. I now know the way my father’s eyes narrow with worry, and open with laughter and pleasure. The way he looks away while he forms his thoughts, writing his script in his head before he turns to me to speak his lines with words he has carefully chosen.
And then the time came when I needed him and he was there – understanding my desperate need to find a diagnosis for my sick little girl , and he too became her advocate , connecting me with the right doctor- the one who finally could tell us what was wrong and how our life would be. He sat with me , sharing my hurt, touching me briefly as we tried to understand the words the doctor spoke. We went on a drive later that day, my father, his wife, and I. We traveled up and down winding streets and I watched the newly bright green trees against the radiant blue of the afternoon spring sky. The scenes slipped by my back seat window while I sat struggling with the silence. Searching for the right words to thank him for being there, words that could reflect the rawness of my emotion. I looked up and saw my fathers deep brown eyes, holding me, framed in the rear view mirror.
Meeting his gaze, I watched his eyes darken with emotion. I understood then that I had finally found sameness. There were my very own eyes, looking back at me. |
