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Losing your family to adoption is probably the one loss in which the whole of society expects you to be grateful.

You never get an "I'm sorry," you never hear an "Are you ok?" The only words that are expressed are words of "You should be grateful you weren't aborted!" or "Be happy you had such great parents!"

While words that are intended to bring comfort seldom do, it is the smaller losses that encompass the initial loss of mother and family - heritage, genealogy, history, roots...and the persistent hiding away of any and all documentation of who I was and any record of my coming into this world - that really drive the grief home. Not only did I lose my entire biological family, but I am denied the right to ever know anything about who I was or where I came from. And to top it all off, I am told I should feel grateful for it.

Now, don't get me wrong; I love my adoptive family, and I do appreciate my life and everything that I have been given. But the fact remains that a huge part of me has been missing since the day my mother signed her name on those adoption papers and I was forever separated from her and from the family that I was born to be raised with. People I look like; people I sound like and laugh like and share the same talents, interests and passions with. People who's ancestors made the genes that made my genes.

What society still hasn't come to realize, is that adoption - though a happy and joyful event for most families - must first come from loss. Loss of a family for the adoptee, loss of a baby or child for a mother. Sometimes the mother chooses to place, sometimes the mother loses her child. But no matter what, there are two losing sides to adoption, and most people don't yet know how to allow either one of them to go through the grieving process. Mothers are told to move on, to forget about their children - adoptees are told to be grateful for their very existence on the planet. Yet I doubt anyone would tell a non-adopted person to be grateful they were not aborted; that is a special honor saved just for adoptees.

The next time you meet an adopted person who happens to express sadness over losing his or her mother, father, or other biological family member, please try to show some empathy. If you know a woman who has surrendered her child for adoption, allow her to grieve for her lost child. This is, after all, a very real loss and should never be downplayed. It is just as real as losing a loved one to death.

Learn more about this author, B.G. Rich.
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