​Hello my Blogville friends! This will be a short blog but I still wanted to say hi and see how all of you are doing. 

Currently my husband and I are on a 45th Wedding Anniversary trip on the East Coast of Canada. We have been to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and it has been wonderful. 

I thought you might enjoy hearing some of our funny moments that often accompany travel. Well, at least when I travel they seem to happen with regularity!

For example, when we arrived at our Quebec hotel address, the GPS instructed me to turn left as we had ‘arrived at your destination’. Naturally I turned right instead and ended up driving in the exit of the McDonald’s drive through lanes. Something I hadn’t noticed before that day, if you drive through the wrong way, the order window is on the passenger side! Thank goodness I was not ordering anything. I was hoping no one noticed but I couldn’t be that lucky. Just like the car full of teenagers were, I would have laughed at me too! 

On another day I walked through a spider web. I peeled it off my face and hair as I walked to our vehicle. A little while later, as I was driving, I saw a spider walking down my glasses. It had just started crawling onto my nose as I pulled the vehicle over. I yanked off my glasses, sending the spider flying onto my husband. Now he’s freaking out trying to find the spider. As he’s slapping everywhere he thinks the spider might be he says, “Now I can’t find it. Why didn’t you just keep it on your face?” I burst out laughing and replied, “Gee I would have if I wasn’t driving!” 

Now you all know what it’s like to orient yourself to a hotel room as you are travelling right? At my age, several different rooms over several days offers a couple of challenges. Also at my age, overnight bathroom visits are common. I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you that, instead of the bathroom doorway, I walked full face-on into a wall on one night. Ouch! Luckily just a tiny bruise near my eyebrow. I was laughing so hard I barely made it into the actual washroom doorway in time! 

Oh and about 50 percent of the time, on my way back to the bed following my nocturnal bathroom visits, I cannot remember what side of the bed I had crawled out of. The side of the bed I choose at each hotel is inconsistent as it is based on where the air conditioner is positioned in the room. In case you hadn’t noticed, hotel rooms are notoriously dark! I finally devised a trick- I feel my way along the foot end of the bed to determine which side is currently empty! Works 80% of the time. 

Ok but all kidding aside, travelling this beautiful country of ours has been breathtaking. We have seen incredible landscapes, explored historical lighthouses, were welcomed on board a bluenose sailboat, spent time up close with bald eagles and seals, and walked amazing beaches collecting sea glass and sea shells. These are just a few of our adventures out in Eastern Canada. I haven’t even talked about the food out here! Lobster Rolls top my favourites’ list!

As noted, this blog is a short one, but our exploring continues. I just wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten about you, my Blogville friends! Thank you for stopping by! Until next time. . .

Don’t forget that your comments are welcome here or by sending me an email at [email protected]

Welcome back to Blogville my friends, it is so nice to have you back for a visit! Today I am sipping on a chai tea because it has so many mystery ingredients, kind of like the biological mysteries of being an adoptee. Maybe it was my granddaughter’s birthday that inspired this blog, or more specifically when her other grandmother commented on how much my now eight year old granddaughter looks like me. It was at that moment I realized how lucky my granddaughter is to know who she looks like. As an adopted person, I had to wait 22 years to meet any biological family members that might look like me! That was just the beginning of my journey. Here’s how it went . . .


I grew up not knowing anyone I was biologically related to. I knew no one who looked like me. When I was 18 years old I met my true love. Two years later we married, and two years after that I met my first biological relative, our first child, a daughter. I’m not sure there was ever a baby more stared at in wonderment than she was. Maybe all adoptees feel this way when they meet their first child. I simply could not stop looking at her, seeking any resemblance to me. I was 22 years old before I met anyone that might look like me. She was later joined by three siblings, and by the time I was 32 years old I still only knew four biological relatives; my own children. Think about that for a minute. Think about no one ever saying, ‘you have your mother’s eyes, or your father’s nose’? It does impact on one’s sense of belonging. I remember once when I was quite young and someone said, ‘They (meaning the Children’s Aid Society) did a pretty good job matching you with your parents because you are built like your dad!”
I was just a kid and I remember thinking ‘what does that even mean?’ They were just mom and dad to me, if I didn’t look like them did that mean they wouldn’t or couldn’t be my parents? Did it mean I did not belong to my parents unless I met a certain criteria? What if my own newborn did not look like me? What then?


Soon after the birth of our fourth child, I met my birth half sister, who had also been adopted. I was 32 years old and she was 35. I later met her two sons, so I then knew three more biological relatives. A few years later I met my birth father’s adult children. I now had two more biological siblings, and two biological nieces. I was 39 years old. The next year I met my birth father. I was 40 years old. He could see a resemblance but I did not really see it, except in our eyes, our eyes were similar in shape and colour. He also noted that I have the same ‘husky’ voice as one of his sisters. Of note, people were right when they said I’m built like my dad, they just had the wrong dad. 


I never had the opportunity to meet my birth mother but eventually I met her four other daughters, and their children; suddenly finding myself among so many biological relatives! I was 60 years old. Yes, you read that correctly, I was 60 years old before this privilege was granted to me. I was invited to a family reunion of my birth mother’s extended family where I met generations of people I am biologically related to, but who did not know my half-sister and I even existed. They were never given the chance to know us until my half-sister and I were in our 60s. Meeting them was filled with both happiness at gaining all of these family members, and a sense of loss at how much of each other’s lives we had missed. 


Among these people were some who knew, and kept, the secrets of adoption. Among these people I felt both acceptance and curiosity. I caught many sidelong glances as they studied me, comparing my features to that of my birth mother’s. At the same time, I found a commonality and sense of belonging at this gathering through things like my long legs and my fair skin (Dutch ancestry), and even my sense of humour. Among these people with whom I share genetic material, I learned so much as they shared their memories of my birth mother. She became more than simple descriptors on a page written by a social worker. I learned things about her as a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a sister-in-law, an aunt, and even as a cousin. 


As you can see, I have come a long way from meeting my first biological relative when I was 22 years old, to today when my life is enriched by connections within my immediate biological family. I am now connected with both my extended family members through adoption, and my extended family members through birth. Though I have found a sense of connectedness with my birth family members through physical resemblance, I feel that I have an even stronger connection with my adoptive family members through life’s experiences. In my adoptive family, my cousins, aunts and uncles all form parts of my lifetime memories as a result of our having shared so many lived experiences. My cousins’ and my memories of mutual visits to our grandmothers’ homes when we were children are gathered in our hearts. These people knew/know me, and claimed me, as their daughter, their granddaughter, their cousin, their niece, and they knew/know me as me! My birth family will never know me like that.


I believe that human relationships are built on shared experiences.  There are good and bad relationships among family members no matter how that family was created; through birth, marriage, kinship, adoption, surrogacy, and so on. We can choose to focus on or blame any poor relationships on how we became members of our families, or we can accept that we have a relationship with each other, no matter how we arrived at it, and work together at creating and maintaining good experiences. 


With changes to openness in adoption practices it is the hope that my adoption life experiences will be prevented and that adoptees will be spared having to wait 22 years before meeting someone biologically related to them. Adoptive parents are certainly provided with more information than my parents were ever given, so there is hope that they can answer their children’s questions about their birth family as they come up. Pictures are even provided in many cases so a child can see for themselves where their features came from. When adoptive parents are provided with the tools they need to help answer their children’s questions about biological identity, those children are better able to form trusting relationships with their adoptive parents. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words.


Thank you again for visiting with me in Blogville. Feel free to leave a comment so I know you stopped by. As ever, you are also welcome to send me an email at [email protected] See you next time!