One Little Girl’s First Christmas Home

A day filled with pure joy for one family, and a possible sense of loss for another.

There’s a little girl in Scotland who is going to be waking up to her first Christmas with her adoptive parents.

I imagine Santa will be over-generous with his gift giving. It’s how things tend to be when our children are young, but perhaps more so when the journey of embracing an adopted child into one’s life, comes to fruition.

I haven’t met her. She’s my nephew’s little girl, born in the same town my family was born in, so we have a lovely connection.

Today I was trying to resurrect personal memories of my childhood, and I think I have one or two memories of when I was around four, but none before then.

This little girl is three, so she may be spared any negative memories of her past, whatever her past happens to be.

Sure she’s an only child to my nephew and his wife, but she is now related to a huge, boisterous, welcoming family, cousins big and small, grandparents, uncles and aunts, a ready-made family.

This child will never be alone, or lonely, because she will be surrounded by people old and young, people with arms ready to shoulder her, hearts to reassure her when she is upset, and wisdom to proffer when she has a problem.

She will be validated always, about who she is and what’s she’s worth.

I have no idea of Kim’s background, but I do know, despite the many children in institutional care who desperately need a loving home, it takes a lot of time, a lot of hoop crawling, and mounds of paperwork to eventually be trusted to care for an at-risk child, and provide a stable home full of safety and love.

She is one very lucky child.

And they are two lucky parents.

Of course even we who are fortunate enough to have enjoyed secure lives, still wonder how our lives might have panned out had we done one thing or another, taken one career pathway or climbed a different mountain, had richer parents, travelled, taken risks.

The list goes on and on, because it’s part of the fantasy that all humans indulge in.

Much the same thoughts can be imagined by an adopted person on reaching adulthood.

It’s not too hard to step into the mind of an adopted teenager, when they decide they are unloved and wish for their real parents, and crave in the moment, a genetic connection.

In those moments they may dream up an amazing fantasy that supplants their present situation.

But is that any worse than someone threatening to leave home because they must have been adopted to be so unloved?

I remember saying it.

I also remember the rest of my family laughing as I packed my bags.

Adopting a child and loving that child fiercely through the storms of life, is surely a risk worth taking, including those stormy teen years.

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the horrendous Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, in Indonesia.

Gill McCulloch eloquently shares a family story below.