Adopting Family – Sharing the Joy of Love

I’m adopted…but not how you think.

I’ve spent most of my life learning and doing a variety of things. I’m a writer. I’ve programmed computers for the government and contractors (I was once an actual rocket scientist…which is only a little less impressive than it sounds). I’ve been a sports photographer. I’ve been a graphics artist. And on, and on. Suffice it to say, I do a pretty good job at filling up the hours of a day. The net result of this constant activity is that I put one aspect of life on the counter next to the back-burner…actually getting involved in a relationship and having a family.

Don’t cry for me. I don’t. I’ve had an interesting and varied life doing many of the things that people say they wish they could have done, if only…. Well, boys and girls, I took the bullet for y’all, and did/do those things. The one freeing factor was not having to shoulder the weight of familial responsibility–which, having a family, I would take very seriously. Of course, the cost to me has also been not getting to have said family.

Years ago, when I was a manager for a local paper, a woman and her family crossed my path and have forever changed my life. We’ll call her Mary Scott (I’m changing all the names for the sake of their privacy). She worked at a competitor that was added to the company’s portfolio as a result of a merger. I became her immediate higher-ranked-in-the-corporate-hierarchy (neither of us actually being superior to the other). We became friends very quickly, but since I was her boss, I was careful to keep it a “working friendship.”

At an end-of-summer company picnic, I got to meet the rest of her family: her daughters Jamie, Tess, and Scarlet (covering teen-thru-tween), and her mother, Dale. To use the cliched line from Jerry Maguire, they had me at, “Hello.” They immediately had my heart…not that I could do anything about it, but I knew that I wished we were family. I spent most of the afternoon with them, and hated when the event came to a close.

My father and mother always told me about how, when my father met his future mother-in-law, that he immediately felt like part of the family, and she felt the same about him. Now, I loved my grandmother dearly, so this made perfect sense. However, I never fully appreciated it until I met all of the Scotts and found myself in the same sort of emotional web.

Anyway…within a year or so, I’d left my job for other adventures, and Mary and I lost touch.

Fast forward a few years later.

One day, out of the blue, Mary calls me (good thing I still had the same phone number). It just so happens that the family now lived a few blocks away from my house. Remembering how happy knowing them made me, but cautious about what time might have wrought, I soon went over wondering how this unexpected life-story chapter might play out. Long-story-short it’s gone pretty darned well.

In the time between then and now, I feel like I’ve gotten to have a bit of the chosen-family (as opposed to the one you’re born into) that I thought I’d never have. They, and the new grandchildren, have given me more joy than I ever expected. Spending time with any of them, or even just helping out (even when no one is around), gives me great joy. I constantly feel a smile on my face. Nothing gives me more happiness than when I can do something for them–to be useful in some way–although the hugs I receive in return are pretty nice, too.

That’s not to say that all the parameters of our relationship are defined. After all, the girls’ father is still close-by, and they do have their own relationships with them. I’m not trying to be their father…they already have one. Even so, I’d like to think I’ve become something more than just a friend to all.

That’s where the adoption comes in. It’s something that we mention from time-to-time. Now, whether I adopted them, or they me depends on who’s doing the defining. Suffice it to say, we love and trust each other. They have given my life so much, I can never repay them…though I constantly try. They say that it is them who are on the debit side. It doesn’t matter. I think that on balance this means that we’re all just about in the right place. They are part of my family, and I am part of theirs.

Though I’m close with my parents and my brother, I never thought I’d be so happy to also consider myself adopted. Mary and the girls and Dale, as well as a variety of pets, have filled my world with a very comforting love. We aren’t perfect, and have our disagreements about some things, but that doesn’t change how much we care.

To all you who think you’ll never find love, all I can say is be patient (clue…I’m in my 40s, so it took a fair amount of patience) and be open…you never know.