For thirty years, I was deceived. I thought my parents had abandoned me and had adopted me. I thought I had been unwelcome.
But when I entered the orphanage that was meant to be my first home, I discovered something that nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for. For illustrative purposes only
I was three years old when it all began. My father placed a heavy hand on my small shoulder as he seated me down on the couch.
“Sweetheart, there’s something you should know.”
I clutched my favorite stuffed rabbit and looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Your real parents couldn’t take care of you,” he said gently. “So your mom and I stepped in.
We adopted you to give you a better life.”
My mother passed away in a vehicle acci:dent six months later. I hardly remember her, only the tenderness of her touch and the warmth of her voice. It was just my dad and myself after that.
When I was six, I struggled to tie my shoes. Frustrated, I started crying. My dad sighed loudly and muttered, “Maybe you got that stubbornness from your real parents.”
I stopped asking questions by the time I was a teenager.
He gave me a single sheet of paper, a certificate bearing my name, a date, and a seal, the only time I ventured to request my adoption documents. “See? Proof,” he had said.
I stared at it, feeling like something was missing. But I had no reason to doubt him. Why would I?
Then I met Matt. He saw through me in a way no one else had. “You don’t talk about your family much,” he observed one night.
I shrugged. “There’s not much to say.”
For illustrative purposes only
However, there was. He spoke of my “real parents” as if I were a burden that had been transferred to him.
My classmates’ murmurs, inquiring as to whether I would ever be “sent back.”
“Have you ever looked into your past?” Matt asked me one evening. “No. My dad already told me everything.”
“Are you sure?”
I was plagued by the question.
I therefore made the decision to learn the truth for the first time in my life. When my father informed me that I had been adopted, Matt and I took a car to the orphanage. As we entered, my hands began to shake.
An elderly woman smiled warmly as she greeted us and inquired about how she could assist. “I was adopted from here when I was three,” I explained, my voice shaking. “I’d like to find out more about my birth parents.”
After giving a nod, she started typing on her computer.
She looked up at last, her face unreadable. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “We have no record of you here.”
The air left my lungs.
“What?”
“Are you sure this is the right orphanage?”
“Yes!” I insisted, my voice rising. “This is the place. My dad took me here every year.
He showed me this place!”
She shook her head. “If you had been here, we would have records. But there’s nothing.
I’m so sorry.”
For illustrative purposes only
I felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me. The car ride home was silent. Matt kept glancing at me, his concern obvious, but I couldn’t speak.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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