I never knew my father, and my mother rarely visited. Only much later did I learn from my guardians how I ended up in the childrens home. I was about a year old when I caught pneumonia. Exhausted from the illness, I stopped crying altogether. I lay quietly in my little cot for days, slowly slipping away, while my unhappy mother drowned herself in whisky in the next room.
I was born into a family where my mother cared more for drinking than for anything else. Her binges would last for days, and the constant sound of her tippling kept me awake through the nights. The neighbours had begun to complain about the baby who wouldnt stop crying, so one day my mother decided to take me to hospital. When the nurse came by to check on me, she discovered me in flames. My clothes had caught fire, and it took three people to put the blaze out. I was rushed to the emergency department, where they tended to my burns. Throughout my treatment in hospital, my mother didnt visit me once.
The happiness I found in the childrens home stayed with me, even after the birth of my first child. I received an education and landed an excellent job, and my flat was spacious and beautifully furnished. Living there gave me tremendous joy. We created our own loving surrogate family, though there was one thing missing a child of our own.
My husband and I adopted a two-year-old girl from a childrens home. Plenty of people warned us against it, but we didnt heed their advice. We took her with us when we moved to London, risking the possibility that she might be afflicted by some inherited illness. But she has been perfectly healthy ever since!
Now, I thank God every day for granting me the mind to make my own choices and not simply follow others. Not one warning from the doctors proved true my child is flourishing, healthy, and growing. In my view, its far too easy to blame a childs faults or hardships on bad genes. As though care and upbringing play no part, and the fault lies solely with the biological parents and their genetics. In reality, a child needs love and the sense that they matter to become a good person.
Soon, it will be five years since our adoption, and I admit I am anxious. I love my son just as much as I love my other child, who is my biological daughter they are both my family. Yet part of me worries that Emily will learn she was adopted and respond badly. I have no idea how Ill begin that conversation with her should she find out. Will she understand? That thought terrifies me even more than the prospect of someone telling her before I do.
