Look who’s featured in the March/April issue of Adoptive Families Magazine:
Table of Contents
Page 34
This is a tremendous source of pride for me on two levels. One, because I’m the mother of this spectacularly gorgeous little girl. Obviously. I already knew that Sula is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen 
But the other is that it was a validation of the photography skills that I have been working so hard to build. To see a photograph that *I* took featured in a real magazine, well, that is just really cool.
Interestingly enough, the article that Sula’s picture appears with is quite pertinent to our current situation. “Budding Curiosity” deals with talking to your preschooler about adoption, fielding questions about pregnancy and race and their first families. Recently, I’ve found myself fumbling around to find answers to some really difficult and profound questions Sula asks. “Did I grow in your tummy?” That I can deal with. But “What happened to my mom?” is a heck of a lot harder. The realization that I had fumbled came when Kiddy was visiting the other day. Sula approached me with a request to relay a message to Kiddy, so I leaned in close as she whispered in my ear: “I want you to tell Kiddy that my mom died.” I asked her if she was sure, and she said yes. So I did.
Kiddy’s eyes widened, and met mine. Kiddy murmured her sympathy to Sula, who shyly eyed Kiddy while she cuddled securely in my lap. I was embarrassed by my obvious mishandling of the information, but I have been honest with Kiddy about our struggles to competently navigate this sea of unusual circumstances, and she understands the complexity. Sure, there are books and articles and experts that weigh in on these issues. But so many of the circumstances that brought our children away from their first family and into ours are bizarrely and uniquely tragic. There is no other child in Sula’s preschool class, or in our town, or even in any of the adoption groups to which I belong, who shares the same narrative. There is no script that I can refer to when Sula catches me off-guard with a question about her roots.
I err on the side of honesty and openness and end up wishing I could snatch back the frightening words like “sick” and “sad” and “dead” that come tumbling out of my mouth. But the pat answers that serve only to reassure don’t seem to answer the very legitimate questions that Sula poses. “WHY did she die?”, she asks emphatically. Or, “where is she now?” As I drive the inquisitive three-year-old Sula and four-year-old Bo home from preschool, I sneak peeks at them in the rearview mirror to try and gauge the depth of their interest in the subject at hand. Sometimes it’s enough to say we’ll talk about it later. Sometimes it’s not, and I have to balance the need for information with the need for safety and comfort and worthiness. Only time will tell if we have maintained that balance.
