Being Adopted – Intro to “Four Days to Family”

To make a VERY long story short, I was adopted as an infant into the wonderfully large and loving Curry (Dad’s side)/Lugar (Mom’s side) family – to which I constantly thank my lucky stars. Surrounded by unconditional love and honesty, I grew up always yearning to find my birth family – not to replace anything I had, but to get answers to all my questions – who do I look like, my mother or father? Do I have siblings? Why was I given up? Did my parents ever see me? Did they ever look for me? I don’t think these are unusual, and they weighed heavy on my heart on and off throughout my teenage and young adult years.

Then, through the help of the internet and my Pitbull-like tendencies, I found my birth family (mother’s side) in 2003. I have tried to sit down and write out the story, and have gotten as far as 32 pages, but have found it harder to write than I care to admit. 🙂 Through a section of this blog, I would like to introduce you to MY story, in its first draft. I welcome your constructive criticism, encouragement, or thoughts — I just ask that you be kind as it feels a bit like standing on a stage naked to share this…..here goes…..

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I don’t ever remember being told I was adopted, and never realized that was different than most children. It was just something I always knew; kind of like how most people know they are Italian or Irish. No one ever sat me down for a serious face-to-face conversation to explain the birds and bees of adoption. There were no instructional songs or children’s bedtime stories read regularly that were titled, Jane and the Wonderful World of Adoption.

In fact it was quite the opposite. For the longest time, I thought my brother Mike “picked” me, something like the proverbial cabbage patch. Being four years my senior, he used to tell me the story of my adoption when we were younger. “I was the one who picked you out.”

I had this image of a hospital nursery, all sterile with the large glass viewing window like I saw on TV. Inside the nursery room were all these babies in every hue, wrapped snugly in their blue or pink blankets, crying and flailing their fists the way babies do.

I was nestled somewhere in among them, perhaps in the middle of these twenty or so infants, blending in to this room of babies, nothing noticeable to make me standout. Mike and my parents walk up to the window.  Mike pressed his little four-year-old fully-freckled face framed by his bright red hair to the glass. He carefully looked at all the newborns, one by one, until his eyes landed on me. “I want THAT one!” he yelled at our parents, who of course oblige their only boy in his selection of a sister.

I always felt so lucky to be ‘picked” to be the little sister. It wasn’t until I was much older that she realized Mike’s description of the whole scenario really only meant that he was the first one to see me when the Social Worker brought me to live with the Curry family. There was no nursery window or infant line up. There was only a young Social Worker toting a wriggling three month old from her foster home placement to her forever home placement. I never did find out where I was from the time of my birth until my adoption three months later, only that they called me “Tracy” since no one provided them with a name for the baby in their care.

It wasn’t until I was about seven that I found out not everyone was adopted. My older cousin Suzy was visiting for the day and we were playing make-believe dress up in the living room. Suzy got mad at me for not agreeing to play the part of a frog prince. Suzy snatched the princess veil from my hands.

“Well, you’re not my real family! At least I wasn’t adopted!” she sneered through her tightly held eight-year-old lips while slipping the veil over her head.

I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but her words stung deeply like when Mom sprayed Bactine on my scraped knees. I was determined to find out what Suzy meant and to learn about her real family.

I’m From

I’m from ~

            Battling tops on Sunday afternoon visits to Uncle Joe’s, the Monkeys talking hand puppet, the Campbell’s soup kids on an autumn day, and Jordache jeans in junior high. 

I’m from ~

            The Appalachian mountain spring water, the Northeast Kingdom snow drifts, to the sprawling Central Virginia tobacco fields.

I’m from ~

            Family reunions with kibbee, grape leaves, and halupki, women in the kitchen while men sleep with full bellies around the living room.

I’m from ~

            Cigar smoke wafting around Uncle Gus’ house while Mike and I “drove” the dining room table from below, smoking our “grape leaves”.

I’m from ~ 

            “Where’s the beef?!”, a swimming hole a mile back Stoystown Creek, knowing-it-all teenagers to always smiling infants.

 I’m from ~

            Meeting my birth mother at the airport for the first time after 36 years, leaving her father at the airport waving goodbye to his only three great-grandchildren – knowing it could be our first and last meeting.

Knowing I was meant to be.