Being Connected

I had planned to start this post in a slightly different way, but I just saw a trailer for a documentary about adoption called Closure and want to share it with you.  It’s a film by Bryan Tucker, and it’s about his wife, Angela, and her journey to find her birth family.

You can read more about it and watch the trailer here:  Portrait of an Adoption.  It’s just a couple minutes long but just those few minutes brought tears to my eyes.   A woman (possibly Angela’s birth mother) says ‘and for the rest of my life, I’ll be connected.’  She’s describing how she feels since Angela found her.   It kind of took my breath away.  I can’t imagine the not knowing…whether you’re an adoptee or a birth parent (or a sibling or other family member.) I can’t imagine that.  And what a sense of closure it truly must be to finally meet those people that have been missing from your life.  It makes me even more grateful that openness in adoption is more frequent now.

You can also help Bryan get his project funded…there is a link on the Portrait of Adoption site (at the link above) for his Kickstarter campaign.

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Being connected is what I was originally going to write about.  Thursday night we attended a fundraiser gala for our adoption agency.  We were asked by our caseworker if we would host a table at the event.  We said yes and asked some family members and friends to attend. 

As the fundraiser got started, they showed us a short video that included some of the people who work for our agency and how they are personally connected to adoption.  A youth choir performed.  We heard speeches from some of the people who run the agency as well as a family and their two children. 

We listened to a radio personality speak about her personal connection to adoption.  The keynote speaker was a man who adopted two of his children and encouraged everyone to not be ‘practical’ because being practical doesn’t create change.  (The title of the even was Change a Life; Change the World.) 

It was amazing to be in a room surrounded by people who have been touched by adoption.  We got to see our caseworker as well as Zoe’s birth mom’s caseworker.  We saw other people that we recognized from the agency as well.  We saw adoptees and adoptive families come together for the evening’s event. 

We are so happy that we could attend and be a part of such a special evening.  It was great to be in a room where you could really feel how much everyone had been touched by adoption.  We’ve already been asked by other family members and a friend if we can invite them to next year’s Gala, too.  Looking forward to it!