I struggled to cope with her refusal to meet me, until a straight-talking judge gave me a new perspective
S
ometimes we learn the deepest truths in the most quotidian moments. One afternoon when I was six, I watched a character give birth in an army tent in the sitcom M*A*S*H. I immediately rushed from the den into the kitchen with a very important question for my mother. “Did you give birth to me in a tent like that?” I blurted out, hoping to learn my origin story.
Unexpectedly, my mother dashed from the room in tears. When she returned, she sat me down and broke the news I had somehow always known. “Your Uncle Ana brought you home from the hospital to Mommy and Daddy,” she said. “You’re adopted, which means we chose you.”
I felt relieved to learn this truth, but as it upset my mom, I resolved never to bring it up again. Still, my thirst for details never waned. My parents and I had the same skin tone, but I didn’t much look like them. I was awkward, gangly and bookish; they were not. Despite their love and acceptance, I had always felt like an alien in my family and could never put my finger on why.
