An Adoption Story Part 3

“Wait, what the fuck?”

It was the second time I'd ever cursed in front of my mother my entire life. It was one of the most disorienting yet clarifying experiences of my life. See, things tend to make sense only because we let them, especially when we are children. At 13 I already asked more questions than I should in my day-to-day life, but that day the information coming at me was too real to ask everything about. 

My parents readily admit they waited too long to tell me. The fact that I found out on my own should tell anyone that. But they didn’t lie to me when confronted, and that meant a lot of other things in my life started to make sense that I just simply didn’t know were true. 

I’ll start with Grandma Louise. A fun Italian woman from New York who now is in her 80’s and still living a good life. But this woman means the world to me. As a kid, every year the sweetest gifts came for my birthday and Christmas from her and she’d always call and reach out, more than my own grandmother really. I didn’t realise how important she was to me ending up where I am in life. 

My dad worked for what is now American Airlines (US Airways was better but we can have airline discourse another day) and worked in a hangar here in Charlotte with many people. One of them named John was decently close with my dad and when dad let him know he was considering adopting a child let him on to the fact his mother was fostering a newborn African-American child. His mom was the woman I always knew as Grandma Louise. She’s been a constant in my life from when I was called Paul at birth until now.

But she wasn’t the only one, remember Sharon from the last instalment? She also had a weird placement in my life. See, before my parents ended up meeting her as my case worker at Catholic Social Services, Sharon was a member of the same local church as my family. Just another in a set of very strong coincidences that ended up creating the person baring himself right now.

With all that said thank you for listening again, and this week I will be moving along with the process and report back with more information.