Perspective

I traveled this past weekend. For the first time, I walked into the house I'd known for more than 20 years and knew I'd be taking keepsakes, momentos, pieces of my history.

There were books, and a statue, some tea cups (yeah, I know it's weird) that I wanted. Pieces that held little to no monetary value but ones I had cherished. In some cases, I felt child-like awe returning as I handled them with extreme care.

The pictures were at once both the hardest and the easiest. I took the school photos that documented the march of time in my life, as well as two images I copied.

One was my father, in July of 1984, swaying in a hammock on our farm. He looked relaxed and playful. I've always loved that image of my father.

The one I cried as I took from its frame meant the most to me. To a casual observer, it looked like a little girl pouting as a mom chuckled, cajoling the child into something.

I am not the casual observer. I know what's happening in that image.

My adoption made me feel like an outsider. I lost a lot of the confidence 4-6 year old children often have, knowing that my parents were, and weren't, my "parents" in the usual sense. I grew up terrified that if I did anything wrong, I'd be taken back to where I'd been. Returned as defective, or unwanted.

My Mother was an incredibly intuitive woman. She and my Father had taken in many foster children, but they'd adopted me. Somehow her empathic nature told her that my insecurities needed unique reassurance, so she devised a game.

At the camping grounds where the image was taken (around 1987), I would race ahead and sit on the large rocks lining the path to the bathrooms. I would pretend to cry and be sad, all the while my parents making their way up the same path. When they reached me, my Mom would ask why I was crying. I would say I was lost, and didn't have a family. My Mom would say that they would love me and keep me forever, and we would agree to keep each other forever before bundling off to the bathroom together, hand in hand.

My relationship with my Mom and Dad was ironclad, and by my twenties I looked like both of them. I somehow managed to develop my Mom's voice over the phone. But looking at these images of the two people who took such amazing care of me, who raised me and taught me all they could - I hope a tiny portion of the legacy of love and compassion they left behind lives on in me. I will forever be in awe of the lengths my parents, particularly Mom, went to so that I could feel safe and loved. There's an incredible power in that kind of love.