This past summer we had the opportunity to spend some time with Lily's birth family. Before Lily, I would have assumed that a closed adoption would be the best way to do things. The threat of another family created fear in my mind. But now that I have Lily, I know that an open adoption is definitely better for her. It's not like we could trick her. Eventually she will look in the mirror and notice that something doesn't quite look the same. And so we have been open with her since birth. Can you imagine dropping the bomb that your child was adopted if it was kept a secret for awhile? And wouldn't it look you considered it a bad thing if you had hidden it from them? We have taken it upon ourselves to celebrate her adoption. When she was adopted she became part German and part English. She was always Canadian. And when she was adopted a part of us became Inuit. We are a family and when you are a family you are a piece of everyone in your family. Adoption is a word that she learned just like shoe, juice, or ball. I'm sure she doesn't completely understand it, but that understanding will eventually come to her just like understanding the concepts of big and little, or up and down. We have adoption books in our house. We read them as often as any other book and when she is older we will take part in events organized by the Adoption Support Centre. I'm not fooling myself that there won't be issues. Any parent thinking that they can guide their child to adulthood without issues is fooling themselves.
Lily is lucky to have wonderful birth parents. It is not my place to tell their story, but I want everyone to know that they are selfless and loving people. People ask me all the time if they are poor and unemployed. That is not the case. They have five beautiful children; four girls and one boy. They are kind and smart and sweet. We are all so lucky to have them as a part of our family. It will be so much easier to tell Lily where she comes from and about her culture because we have them in our lives. And of course, their kids are adorable. They look a lot like Lily.
But we have cultural differences that we have to work through. We were all uncomfortable at first. You could tell that they wanted to run to Lily and hold her, but held themselves back understanding that she is shy like their own daughters. We wanted to do different things in Winnipeg because different things were important to us. We are in the city all the time so regular city things don't interest us on vacation, but that is entirely different for them. We all met up at the Forks and went to the Children's Museum. It was an opportunity for the kids to be kids and Lily spent a lot of time playing with her sisters. They were really cute together. There were twinges of jealousy when they would look at her like their own, but I was the one going home with her at the end of the day. There was an aboriginal festival at the Forks and there was a demonstration of traditional Inuit games. They were interesting to watch, especially with our own commentators. And it was really hard to say our goodbyes. We know we will see each other again. We just don't know when.
We are so fortunate to have this experience, even without Lily being the joining factor. Inuit people are part of our Canadian culture and I had no knowledge of their language or culture before this. I am a better person because of them.
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