Guest Post on Adoption ~ Ketsia
While in Haiti in November, I was privileged to meet 2 beautiful teen girls who were volunteering at Mountain Top Ministries for 3 months. One of those girls was Ketsia who spent many of her days at Rivers of Hope (the orphanage that Giselle is at). Imagine my delight when she told me that she was born in Haiti, adopted into a white family in Canada at age 3. I confess I probably drove her a little bit crazy with my questions, but she honestly and graciously answered as many as she could. She is a beautiful, confident young woman and gives me great hope for the future of my girls.
When I returned home, I asked her if she would be willing to write a guest post for this blog. She has spent many hours working on it, and condensed her musings to these raw, honest but beautiful thoughts written here. Thank you, Ketsia. You are such a blessing!
I never had to be told that I was adopted. Having come from Haiti with all the black skin, wiry hair and dark eyes that implies, and being brought into a tall, blonde haired blue eyed Dutch family, it has always been apparent to me. When I was little I remember saying and thinking about it in the same context as I would state any other fact that made up me “My birthday is January fifteenth, my favourite color is red, and I am adopted”. It seemed inconsequential and certainly had no bearings on my everyday life.
Living in a very religious and very white area did not completely escape my attention however, even from a young age. My whole family is white. The large majority of teachers, bank tellers, and grocery clerks I encountered on a daily bases were white. This led me to being able to walk straight into a room as the only non-white person, and not even notice. Strangely enough the only time I became hyper aware of my dark skin, was when I realised there was another person with darker skin in the same room, at the same party, or in the check-out line with us. I have also had others point out my race, in the form of questions that push the barriers of genuine interest to an outright demand to know what African country I descend from, and how long have I lived in Canada. A lot of people also seemed confused to learn that my parents have two biological children, and had adopted me after they were born. These were people who saw adopting as an acceptable plan B for those who could not have children, but didn’t understand why somebody would adopt a child for no other reason than they wanted to adopt a child. This woman once looked at my mom, then looked at me, and said she didn’t know why people kept running out to get little black children when there were plenty of domestic children to adopt. “Didn’t you want a white daughter who might have looked like you”? She demanded. While I don’t mind talking about being adopted, even with totally strangers in checkout lines, this has given me a perhaps lower than usual tolerance for stupid questions (and yes, there is such thing). A little boy once walked straight up to me and asked me if I was born that color. Wickedly, I answered no, and watched with a mixture of satisfaction and guilt as he walked away bug eyed. In fairness to myself I should point out that that response was entirely out of character. I had just come from my first day of my psychology class, and my lovely teacher, upon learning I was adopted graciously gave me a hand out detailing all the psychological disadvantages that regularly befall adopted children. Everything from higher likelihood to succumb to alcohol and drug addiction, to living beneath the poverty line was on there, and while I stared at her dumbfounded, wondering what level of ignorance leads somebody to tell a seventeen year old that she is basically doomed just because she is adopted, she lay her hand on my shoulder and told me it is easier to beat the odds if you know what they are. It was only later that I thought that an awesome comeback would have been to list off some historical figures who were raised by their biological parents, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Charles Manson, to name a few.
It has always been a plan of mine to one day return to Haiti, and see the county where I was born. This summer I spent 3 months working with an orphanage, and one of the biggest surprises on the trip was how much I talked about adoption with other people; my adoption, the kids at the orphanage adoption processes, Haitian adoption, international adoption, domestic adoption, fetus adoption, re – adopting, family reunification. It was hands down the most discussed topic on the trip, and I have never wondered more about my own adoption then I did while in Haiti. For example, one thing that I rarely thought about before was what adopting me was like for my parents. It wasn’t until I met and spoke with some families in the middle of the process until I considered it. Until Haiti, the only thing I knew about my adoption prior to me coming home was that it led to my parents taking a picture of three year old me, fresh out of Haiti, sitting on top of a stack of paperwork, nearly as big as I am, and that it started with a church pamphlet about an orphanage in Haiti, me staring out from the front page, not entirely unlike a couch on the cover of some home décor magazine. Going to Haiti opened my eyes to the struggles, fears, and realities of the adopting parents who often have to wait far longer than nine months to bring their baby home, and I have gained a deeper respect and appreciation for my own parents.
I was brought to Canada when I was three and my parent’s stories about life immediately following my adoption are bountiful. I never stopped crying, I never stopped eating. I hoarded my food. Since only my mom had flown out to get me, I bonded very strongly with her, and cried each and every time my dad attempted to hold me. My mom says that she was exhausted because my dad was unable to help her with me in any aspect, because I would scream and scream if left alone with him for even a moment. I used to sit on the floor beside the toilet when my mom had to go to the bathroom, and went with her absolutely everywhere. Famliy and friends kept asking to see me, but I became so quickly overwhelmed when surrounded by lots of people who would reach out and stroke my cheeks, or grab at my hair, so my parents tried to limit visitors, and didn’t take me out anywhere. They also wanted to be sure that Josh and Jason, my five and three year old brothers, were not forgotten in the process. My mom says that people would stop by and only pay attention to me, and she herself had to be careful of that because I was so needy in the beginning.
My mom tells stories about being near tears in frustration with my sometimes odd and inappropriate behaviour, having exactly no alone or down time ever, and, with the judgmental looks (both real and imagined, I’m convinced) she got from black women who saw how she did my hair. Dutch people have straight hair, meaning it doesn’t even want to curl. My poor mother had never had to deal with hair that refused to be combed, that matted at the neck, and gnarled and broke at the ends. At a complete loss once, she wound my hair around with thick black wool and buckled me into my car seat to haul me out to Vancouver, where she eventually stumbled upon a South African hair salon. She talks about this event like it was a turning point in raising me; how the South African women laughed until they cried when they saw what she had done with my hair, how they undid the messy wool bunches, combed and fixed it with perfect tight braids down to the nape of my neck, and sent my mom away with a bag full of ethnic hair products and an earful of advice for caring for her black child’s hair. My mom said they looked very sympathetic when we left, and is convinced it was me they felt sorry for, not her. “Poor little girl, having to deal with that white women as a mother”. Since I was very young at the time, I have no memory of this event outside of what I am told, but my mother is prone to exaggerations.
I am adopted. That means I will never have somebody joyfully tell me about the day I was born, I don’t even have the guarantee that the day I celebrate is in fact my birthday. When a new baby is born, which is often, my family is Dutch after all, I am completely left out of the conversations of deciding who the baby looks most like, and then the follow up of going through all the cousins and designating every smile, every dimple, and every pair of eyes, an aunt, uncle, or grandparent, saying “she defiantly got that from….!” fill in the blank. I am adopted. It does not mean that I was not loved by my parents in Haiti, who gave me away, and it does not mean I am loved any less by my parents in Canada, who made me their own. I am adopted, and when it really comes down to it, what does that even matter?
~ Ketsia
Truly, what does it matter? Ketsia, you are a beautiful woman – inside and out. Thank you for sharing your love with our kids in Haiti. Thank you for being you. And someday I hope you go back to your psychology teacher to show her how your life has already touched many – because of, and in spite of, being adopted.
No comments:
Post a Comment