I was born in July 1956 in Silver Spring, Maryland. When I was 6, my parents told me that I was adopted. There was a storybook about adoption gently explaining what it meant. I remember thinking, “but you’re my parents.”
My parents also said “don’t tell anyone.” They feared I would be stigmatized. Times were different then. It felt weird when people would say things like, “you look just like your mother.” Aside from being white, I didn’t look anything like either of my parents.
Around the holidays, my parents would often tell the story about “getting the call” to get me. My mother said she immediately quit her job just in time to bring me home for Christmas. For years it never occurred to me to ask “where was I between July and Christmas?”
