One of our more recent additions to the line up of programs we offer to the aging community is a book club. This month's book is the autobiography of Richard Wright, Black Boy.
Reading this book, set in 1908, primarily in the south, documents the story of a headstrong, hungry African American boy trying to sate his hunger, not just for food, but also for knowledge, experience, life!
Home was transient, food was scarce, punishment was severe, and security was unknown.
How this has made me wonder and question the history of my daughters. There is very little day to day history of my daughter's lives before I adopted them. There is a hint of the same type of early life that Richard Wright experienced 100 years ago. While heart breaking to read, it is even more heartbreaking to realize that your children's early lives were probably very similar.
One thing that really stuck out was the anxiety that he felt very early, to the point of being unable to respond to questions, actions, or even eat at times. This anxiety feels familiar to the reactions (or lack) to questions or situations that I thought were easy. Grace and Annabel at times just freeze, no response, acknowledgment of the question and now I wonder if they just could not respond.
While I can't "fix" the past, I can try to secure the future, continually reminding them that food will be served, that love and warmth are not conditional upon behavior, and that I will protect and be there to provide for them.
So here are my girls at Annabel's doctor's appointment last week. Grace decided she must surely feel as badly as Annabel and Annabel proceeded to give her a thorough examination, which of course included checking her hair!!
1 comment:
It is so hard to imagine the various things our children underwent before joining our families. It is really hard to respond with "I don't know" and "We don't really know for sure" to many of the questions about the past. You are wise to focus on the future and control what you can, Jerri.
When we first selected China as the country of origin for our first daughter, part of the attraction was the fact that birth families are not known. Looking back, 3 Chinese daughters later, I would give my right arm to know my daughters' birth families, histories, origins, and more details of early life. What a gift that would be.
XXXOOO, -Holly
Post a Comment