Re-Framing Searching as Radical Empathy
My son was three days old when we left the hospital to go home. As I prepared to step through those sliding doors out into the sunlight of the parking area, I was acutely aware that my son was the same age I was when my infant self left the hospital in the arms of an adoption worker. As I secured his carrier into the car seat base, I tried to imagine what it would be like to leave the hospital still bleeding and empty-handed, as my mother had. When my son was five months old, I realized he was the same age I was when my infant self left my foster home for my adoptive placement. I developed a paradoxical devastation and admiration for my foster mother, knowing intimately the bond we must have had and wondering how she could let me go, despite it. I sought reunion to understand the human side of the choices--or lack thereof--made for me. It was a level of empathy that made my lungs burn Today, a photo of me as a new mother popping up on my Facebook timeline, and an adoptee friend