Saturday, July 7, 2012
Getting to Know You
This song is for Abby and to the rest of my family. That includes sisters that I am not currently talking to and to my dear brother who is afar. It is also for my sisters Kelly and Lori who are living in the same town, near Abby.
Learning to know someone is a process. It isn't something that happens overnight. As children, you learn how to interact with your family members and siblings. It is a process that takes years. Sometimes there will be fights, but you learn (many times by the parents demanding to do so) to kiss and make up.
You learn each other's likes- as well as each other's dislikes. You learn to know just what it is that makes the other person tick and how to push their buttons. You learn how far you can push the other person before they finally break and-as in many cases-start chasing you around threatening to break every bone in your body, as you run and scream for your mother and father to save you.
These are things that you learn while growing up with someone. However, as my family has found out, things can be tough when a sibling who has been missing, to come back into our lives with an easy transition. We find out that, while this person is just like us, she is also different. We each have expectations that our family member is going to be just like us. But, we have to realize that our adopted siblings...our adopted parents...our adopted family are their own person. They had a life before they met you. They have their own likes and dislikes.
The thing that sets birth families who stay together with birth families who are separated apart is that birth families who stay together get to know each other over years, whereas the ones who have had a separation has to get to know each other as they are 'thrown' into each other's lives.
We must remember to be patient and to be kind.
The child of adoption never 'asked' to be put up for adoption. They never did anything wrong. We owe it to them to get to know them and to allow them to get to know us.
I have heard many stories of reunions which didn't go the way that everyone had planned because either the adoptee, the birth parents or the siblings had other ideas of what the other would be like. This is because they never took the time to get to know the other person.
And that is part the journey--that is the part that we must work at every day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow...just Wow...You never cease to amaze me in your wisdom and thoughts. What alot of people don't realize is that they were adopted out for a reason, broken homes, incest,rape, too young, and out of wedlock. We through no fault of our own begin to fantasize about our birth family and how they are going to show up and take us back and all our problems will go away! But that simply is not ever the case. All I have ever wanted was to get t know this family that I am so incredibly like..but yet so different. I was raised by a completely different family, who had diferent standards and came from different cultures and how they raised their children. Neither family is any better than the other...JUST DIFFERENT! I don't nor have I ever felt that I was better than anyone in my new family, just different, but yet amazingly the same! I just want ALL my sisters and my brother to just get along and accept everyone for who they are insted of for eho they are not!!!~Thank you Evy for this amazingly truthful insight into The Pierce, Skinner and Holmes Psyche.
ReplyDeleteWe must remember to be patient and to be kind.
ReplyDeleteThis line should really have resonated with the blogger... when you write something you should at least be willing to at least try and adopt to your own life!..........
"The child of adoption never 'asked' to be put up for adoption. They never did anything wrong. We owe it to them to get to know them and to allow them to get to know us."