The following excerpt is from a great adoption reunion story is by Kris Koenig and published in a column by Carrie Goldman at the Chicagonow website”
Hi. I’m Kris and I’m adopted. It feels kind of weird to introduce myself like that, as for the most part my adoption has been a complete and total non-issue in my life. When people find out that I’m adopted they say, “Wow! What’s it like to be adopted?” and I usually respond with a blank look and say, “I have no idea. What’s it like not to be adopted?” Adoption is simply my reality, and has been since I was a few days old.
It was a closed adoption, because that’s how things were usually done in the late 1970s, but there was never any kind of taboo around it for me, and never a feeling that I couldn’t talk about it, ask questions about it, or think about it. I just mostly didn’t, simply because I had no reason to. I grew up with age appropriate definitions of the word “adopted,” always knowing that my parents were willing to answer any questions I had if I had them, and that was that.
When strangers or family friends made observations that I didn’t look like my parents, I just shrugged, said “I’m adopted,” and that was usually the end of it. I remember one time in school, probably around fourth or fifth grade, where a girl on the playground said I didn’t look like my mom, who was a teacher at the school, so I told her I was adopted. She asked if I liked living with my “foster mom and dad” and if I ever wanted to find my “real parents”.
