February 22nd

A boy once told me that I was ungrateful. I forget when this happened, I forget who he was, and I forget what prompted the comment. But it stayed with me, through all these years.

I was born in China in September 2002 and adopted by a family in America in February 2004, a result of the country’s infamous One Child Policy, and unsurprisingly I don’t know what conditions I was born into or anything about my biological family. I’ve never cared to look for them, either, though my parents have offered to hire private investigators multiple times.

Over the years, many people have struggled to understand how I’ve never felt the need to find my biological mother, because as everyone knows, blood is thicker than water. But my life is proof that DNA isn’t everything.

I’m a strong believer that the universe is always working towards my best interests, whether I’m aware of this effort or not, and the evidence is astounding. I was born in a province known for its rice paddies, rivers, and mountains, and I was left on the steps of a police station so that I was guaranteed to be found. I spent time in an orphanage, and I will never know what happened during those months, but I also spent time with a foster mother who began to teach me English and took photos for my mother on a disposable camera she had sent over. When my father’s parents disapproved of my adoption, he told them that they weren’t allowed that opinion—he would choose me over them, so they had to choose me as well.

I used to wonder how my life would have been if I hadn’t been adopted, the visions rosy with childish innocence, until one day I stopped because I had grown up enough that the shame became too great. Now I wonder if there’s an orphan in China who could have cured cancer, had they been given the resources, or dementia and Alzheimer’s, which my father’s step-father died with, and then I wonder if my grandfather was scared of Death because while we were all in the hospice room when my grandmother took her last lung-cancer riddled breath, none of us were by his side when he passed. I should have appreciated both of them more when they were alive and this floods me with shame as well, because now my memories are clouded with the knowledge of who they were as parents when they were far better at being grandparents and I am their granddaughter.

My father called me last night to remind me that if I ever wanted to visit China, whether for a vacation or something more, he would take me. I’ve always known that. But the truth is that I’ve never felt the need.

I was surrounded by so much love growing up that I never felt a sense of loss, only acceptance. I live with the knowledge that (1) my biological family exists, somewhere, but (2) unless I search for them, it’s unlikely I will ever meet them, and (3) I’m okay with both of those things. Even now, following my parents’ divorce and the dramatic shift in our family’s dynamics, I’m still surrounded by such an abundance of love and care and compassion that sometimes I wonder how I can feel loss at all.

I don’t believe I could ever qualify the depth of my gratitude, because how could a person possibly explain how grateful they are that the universe chose them over another baby? I could write a million words on the topic and they would still never be enough to encompass my debt.

But I try, once a year, on February 22nd.

And on every other day, I choose to focus on all of the love that fills me instead.