Category: Adoption
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Ten Years. Many Lessons.
This week marks ten years since we went from being a couple to parents of twins. Each year I struggle with marking the day. Obviously, it is of import to me. It also is of import to my children in ways I cannot measure or understand. I consciously stay away from anything celebratory. I…
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Musings: Openness In Adoption
I walk around the house mid-morning, my eyes scanning for things to put away or trash. I am tired of the disorganized mess I live in. I am too tired to fix it. My eyes fall on a ring on the floor of Ammu’s room. I pick it up and tuck it into my pocket.…
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#NAM2018 National Adoption Awareness Month: What Can Adoptive Parents Do?
Each November adoptionland is rife with op-eds, hashtags, conferences, panels and social media blitzes by all members of the triad. #FlipTheScript was all I heard over the past few years. I listened hard and reflected on what I heard. Some years, I wrote about my experience with openness in the context of our lives. This…
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Open Adoption: Real Lives. Real Impacts.
My daughter, all of nine and I are standing, facing each other. I hold a tube of cucumber face pack and apply the goo in an even layer all over her face. I avoid her fine blond hair, so pale that I have to look carefully to even see it. Up close, her face is…
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Adoption: Complex, Nuanced, Heavy
The music of my teenage fills my ears as I walk and I feel a sense of being cocooned. I hum along with numbers I can remember. The beauty of Urdu washes over me and I am happy. The way one is happy for no reason. Last night, I sat on a two-seater sofa with…
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Three Identical Strangers: Thoughts And Angst
Spoiler Alert. I highly recommend you watch the movie before reading I watched the trailer for Three Identical Strangers end of June this year. I was fascinated. Not just because this was a story of adoption but because it seemed too incredible to be true. The dramatic music, the reenactments and the hints of something…
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Open Adoption Goes Both Ways
“I am bored!” The words seem to resound, bounce off the walls of our home over the weekend. If they were not out biking or prone on the sofa, eyes glazed over, watching something inane on the television, they start like cicadas, a lone voice, growing, amplifying into a resonant chorus until I either yell…
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A Tale Of Two Mothers
Collected in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). It is dusk, the clouds have been gathering in force all through the day, threatening rain. I am in my study after what feels like ages. For a week I have been tending to my guests, cooking, cleaning, worrying and walking. Today, the house feels quiet, calm, normal. On…
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Motherhood, Cleaved
Collected in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). cleave1split or sever (something), especially along a natural line or grain.“the large ax his father used to cleave wood for the fire” cleave2stick fast to.“Rose’s mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth” adhere strongly to (a particular pursuit or belief).“part of why we cleave…
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Mommy, Mommy: The Soundtrack To My Life
My hands circles her tiny body, my face pressed against her back as she sits and turns the pages of the Llama Llama book I got from the library. Her voice falls up and down, the cadence of it lulling me into a sense of bliss. I am almost asleep when she abruptly flings my…