What Adoption has meant to me

What adoption means to me... When I was born it was what had become of my eldest sister, When I was two it was a whispered necessity, When I was four it was a hopeless impossibility, When I was seven it was a secretly held desperate desire, When I was nine it was my miracle When I was twelve it became a chip on my shoulder, When I was fifteen it could have saved my brothers life, When I was sixteen it was the clear expectations of those in my world, When I was twenty it transitioned to my curse to bear, When I was twenty four it became a quest for my genetics, When I was twenty eight it kept me from connecting with my past, When I was thirty three it returned to being my saving grace, When I was forty unrelated betrayal dredged the pain up again, When I was forty five it required me to "understand" my story, When I was forty seven I became a foster parent, and adoption advocate. Nancy B. 1/14