Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout, Willis?

Recently, we have begun watching older sitcoms, and have been enjoying the family favourite "Different Strokes." While I had watched this as a kid, I never quite realized the blatant and shocking reaction that many people have to Mr. Drummond adopting two black boys, Willis and Arnold. While this sitcom illustrates and pokes fun at the ignorance of people, it actually hits a nerve, realizing that this kind of behaviour was quite rampant. Watching this now makes me even that much more appreciative of what my parents did for me, and for my three adopted siblings, in actually requesting the "hard to place" children from the Children's Aid Society. Here they were, as Dutch in accent, tradition and looks as you can get, and they had four children of varying shades of beige and brown. In the 1960's this was not very well accepted, and unfortunately my Mom and Dad even lost social invites and church friends over their decision to adopt coloured kids. In a world where biracial children and families were actually frowned upon, they were unconditionally accepting of us, and I will be forever thankful for my parents' tangible expression of how God sees us, not by the colour of our skin, but through the love and grace He has for His children.

"♪...red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight...♫"

Mom, meet Mom.

I had the incredible opportunity and privilege of introducing two very special women to one another.
One mother loved me enough to give me up.
Another mother loved me enough to make me her own.
On Friday, those two women met for the first time, and what a precious moment that was. My Canadian mom was in good spirits, good health and very good humour. In addition to her non-stop senior-style chatter, she was able to clearly express to my island mom that she is not jealous at all over me finding her and she is quite happy to share me with Pam. They were able to genuinely thank one another for what they had each done for me. What a blessing that there is much rejoicing in this reunion from both sides! I'm in awe over how all of this is unfolding.
While I may not have had the presence of a father for quite some time now, I'm so pleased to say that I am now blessed with two very beautiful moms in my life instead!

You've got mail!

Today, two very special documents and two very special people arrived at my house.

A few weeks ago, I registered for the post-adoptive information package, which for adoptees, contains the original birth registration filled out by the mother in the hospital, plus the adoption papers. Because of differing birth and adoptive names, these two documents together provide the legal documentation to connect me with my birth mother. Tourists cannot stay longer than three weeks in Bermuda, so I figured that if I can prove legal Bermudian ancestry, well, should the need (or desire!) ever arise to stay longer I want to be prepared. I was told the typical 6-8 weeks for government paperwork so I was not expecting to receive this quite so early. That in itself is pretty cool, but the timing gets even better.

Today Pam and Pierre arrived in Canada for a brief visit. Words cannot express how special it was to open this document with my island mom by my side, reading over the very form she filled out all those years ago in the hospital. The timing was just incredible.

Definitely a moment to remember. Thank you, God, for yet another amazing piece to this story.