Thursday, November 6, 2014

A Repost: "The Past is Not in the Past" from No Hands But Ours/A reflection of adoption

I have been trying to find the words this woman so eloquently and raw wrote to explain the story of children adopted and how they previous life is still a part of the present life. ALWAYS. If you have firends, family or aquantices touched by the beauty and messy of adoption PLEASE READ. This is so insightful.

An excerpt:

I think people see the happy, well-adjusted, beautiful child we have and assume she has left that painful part of her life behind her. I think people assume our hard days are behind us. Friends say things to me all the time like, “She’s not even the same child she was in China”, and “It’s like she doesn’t even remember her old life”, and “she’s just like any other kid now”. And in many ways, they are right. She has changed so much, and she is mostly happy and moving forward with her life and she is, in so many ways, like a typical 3 year old.

But in other ways, the they are wrong. She is the same child that she was in China. And she’s not just like any other kid. And she certainly remembers.

We see the scars of her past show up in our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Another excerpt:

There are times when I can tell people think I am coddling her too much. And maybe I am. But I just don’t think it would be fair to try and parent her exactly the same as my other kids. She just didn’t have the same start in life as them. My sister had three premature babies. I remember she fed them different formula, adjusted their age for certain things, and cared for them differently than I cared for my full-term babies. They had a different start to their life and so they needed different things. So do kids from hard places. They sometimes need different things, different strategies. You just can’t expect them to fall in line with your family and do things the same way your other kids did. You can’t expect them to leave their past in the past. It is in their hearts. You have to make adjustments for them, for all they missed.



You have to allow them room to grieve.

And make no mistake, they all grieve. How could they not?




To read the full blog post both eloquent and raw please go to: http://www.nohandsbutours.com/2014/11/04/day-4-past-past/