A We Are Family member shares their experience of hoping to adopt their son’s sibling, and their sense of loss when it didn’t come to be.
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My husband has just come back from four nights away. For many families, there’s nothing unusual in that. Weekends away and work trips are regular occurrences, and many families take them in their stride. It is unusual for us, though. In the four years since the boys came to live with us, I’ve never spent a night away from them, and my husband has only been away twice, each time for two nights.
Adopters seem to me to be a particularly squeezed segment of the squeezed generation. Often older parents, they soon care not only for their new child(ren) but also their ailing and aging parents. I’ve been observing this from a safe distance. Marvelling at the resilience and strength of these adopters.
The 2018 Adoption UK Life Story Work conference opened with a speech from Sue Armstrong-Brown about the difference between the facts of our life versus the narrative. Many of our children are given the facts of their life but are unable to create a meaningful narrative without assistance. This is why life story work can be so important.
As I hope most parents do we tell our sons that we love them every single day – often multiple times a day – and by now (almost 6 years as a family) we are pretty sure that they understand it and believe it.
My mother lived to just 62, far too young of course and her death seemed illogical and unjust at the time. However, just how young she was is only now starting to sink in – more than 16 years later.
I’m 55 this year, just 7 years younger than she was when she died.
7 years! It will fly by…
Dear Grandparents.
Being the birth mum it seems that people simply put all the blame on your daughter, even the birth dad gets overlooked by most – regardless of the obvious fact that he failed our sons just as much as a parent.
…In our western world we are appallingly bad in dealing and talking about death, loss and grief. In any form, but death in particular. It’s nothing to do with us. Until it is. And it will happen to us all. That much is certain…
Not me; I have one. Rather some reflections on the series on Channel 4 that ran before Christmas and on a recent blog in the context of us receiving our first contact letter from one of our child’s siblings, because ultimately it might turn out to be “Finding My Family” for them, in the fullness of time.
Like many today I am somewhat attached to my smart phone and I have it within reach pretty much constantly. However I was recently away on holiday and just decided that I wanted a day without it so left it behind on a trip to the beach. I didn’t miss it at all and in fact I barely gave it a thought throughout the day.
