Most people grow up knowing they got their eyes from Grandma, or their smile from Dad. Maybe you play with your hair just like your sister, or have the same beautiful hands as your mother. I can only daydream about the origins of such qualities.
I would love to know who had the same unruly mass of hair and bouncy, head-bobbing walk. I long to see my face in the sepia-toned photographs in dusty family albums. I know the only faces that will show reflections of me, will be those of my future children. Perhaps then I will see echoes of me....in a laugh, even in a stubborn streak or deeply-lined hands.
I am not unhappy to be without knowledge of my beginnings, just wistful. Not knowing has made me who I am today. One of the keys to my identity has always been that I am adopted. I embrace the mystery of who and where I came from. There have been periods of longing and discontent...but only when asked, "what are you?" Regardless of the callousness of the question, I did want to know. What makes my skin so pale in the winter, but so dark in the summer? Why are my eyes so light and my hair so thick with curls? Are my ancestors from Israel, France, Tahiti? Did my great-grandparents go to church or attend temple services every Saturday night?
If and when I do find the answers to these questions, it is the enigma of my origins that shaped me the most....not the eventual knowing. The people who came before are not the ones I think of as family. My family are the ones that taught me how to ride my bike, helped me get ready for dance recitals, held me when I screamed from night terrors, proudly watched as I graduated from college. The hair, eyes, and little ears I have are from virtual strangers. The values, life lessons, and recipes come from my family...the people I have journeyed with through my life and all it has encompassed...the ones who will continue to walk beside me regardless of where I cam from.
