Layers

Lately, I’ve felt that there really isn’t a point of trying to make adoption more ethical, or rare. Nor of making people think about the adoptee experience – both growing up, and living a life filled with blank spaces. Blank spaces that can never be filled, questions that will always remain unanswered.

I started this post yesterday, later in the afternoon I watched Episode 2 of this seasons Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The episode was titled Salem’s Lot, guests were Jeff Daniels and Claire Danes. Towards the end of the show Mr. Gates was speaking with Claire Danes regarding her ancestors and the deep loss she was feeling in the moment after a particularly sad story about one of her ancestors and he asked her what she was feeling, her response – it was emotions without memories.

Emotions without memories struck me as a very relevant description of what adoptees can and do experience at many points throughout life, which brought to mind the following post I wrote, originally from 2012 – Letter to my mother

Advertisement