Family In Flux

A theme that keeps cropping up is this idea that adoptees, although I still don’t really like that title, are not really related to their adoptive families. It seems that underlying this argument is the assumption that family is defined by who is biologically related to each other. Obviously though, as I’m sure everyone acknowledges […]

No Typical Adoption

I started writing about adoption because I wanted to reflect on my own experiences. I wanted to explore them more thoroughly. I also wanted to hear what other people thought. I had a seemingly primal human inclination at heart. I wanted to know if there were other people “like” me, who had similar experiences. I’m […]

My File Part II: Bites Away

[This is a continuation from My File Part I: A Baby’s Biography] Sitting on my hardwood bedroom floor I pulled back the manila cover. An old typwritten piece of white stained paper sat in front of me. The top of the page read “Congregation of the Sisters of The Cross of Chavanod” below in bold […]

What’s It Like!?

People often wonder what its “like” to be adopted. They wonder what it feels like. I’d say it feels pretty much like being a human being living with a loving caring family. Its funny, or really ignorant,that people assume since I am adopted I’ve had a traumatic past. I am willing to bet there are […]

Good Life

“Maybe, as we don’t know the meaning of our lives, we should not presume to judge what constitutes a good life. It is true that on no particular basis, I assume that being pleasant contributes to a good life.” -My Father

My File Part I: A Baby’s Biography

As a teenager I never paid much attention to the fact that I knew very little about my time in India as a baby. I was somewhat curious about my biological relatives wondering whose smile I had and more importantly (for a boy heavily involved in sports) how tall I would be. I figured most […]

Pretending

Pretending that your child is not adopted or withholding that information from an adopted child may be the single most disrespectful thing a parent can do to their child. In essence, the act of withholding that information is a statement by the adoptive parent’s that the act or state of being adopted is, in of […]

Shelf Life

My father passed away almost 7 years ago. Before he passed away he decided to donate his body to “science” which I have come to learn means allowing college students to pick and prod his body after it had been formaldihded and given a generic nondescript name. After his body had been “studied” it was then […]

Indian, But No Expert

To some it is fairly evident that I am from India. I should say that it is fairly evident to those who, for lack of a better term, share my “heritage”. To others it is a mystery that they nags them. When I was growing up it was not too uncommon for people, mostly my […]

Life Saving Fantasies

When I was about 10 years old my father was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, but introduced to me as ALS. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It took me until the eighth grade when I did a health project on terminal illnesses, about 3 years later, to be able to […]