(Photo prompt: Brenda Cox)
She saw the red bus nearing. Her eyes stung. Must be the jet-lag and little sleep. Home seemed far. Unreal, almost.
Or was this home?
She pressed her bag against the fullness in her chest.
This question was part of what she’d come all this way to explore.
The crush of people carried her onto the vehicle. Up the staircase. To the top.
She leaned into the seat and let the sounds of a language she’d forgotten wash through her. Awakening belonging. Remembering despair.
She’d been four when her adoptive parents came.
One day she belonged here. The next, nowhere.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Na'ama Yehuda 
The desire to be whom when nowhere is home. Well evoked
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Thank you, Neil. Yes, I work with children who’d been adopted, and the complexities of attachment and trauma (for any adoption means there was a rupture and loss), are often heartbreaking and/or full of meaning and complicated emotions, even for those who have good, loving, accepting adoptive homes. A search for who one is and where one belongs is a real thing for many who were adopted, let alone when that adoption included giving up one’s birth culture and language and everything one had known.
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Such an evocative story
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Thank you, Sadje! Having worked with a good number of children and youth who’ve been adopted – some at birth, some from orphanages, some from foster-care, some by kin, some after terrible experiences, some after difficulties that started even before they were born – there are all manner of realities for them to come to term with. And while love is crucial and stability is paramount, attachment is complicated. And it is not wrong to yearn, even for what others may think was a terrible reality. Or at the very least, to yearn to reconnect with the aspects of oneself that were left behind, and to confront the losses that one might’ve been too young to put in words. I’m glad some of that weight came through.
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I understand this dilemma! I’ve known a few people who have gone through this
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Yes! From your earlier comment, I figured you might! 🙂
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👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
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😀
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😍
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Beautifully done, Na’ama. Some feel the call more than others, to see from where they came. The feels came through big time on this one.
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Thank you, my friend! Yes, what is right for one person, isn’t for another, and this is where it is so important to not presume that “adopted persons are this or that” or “ought to feel this or that” or “must not this or that” – just because one was adopted doesn’t mean that they aren’t as complex and unique as any one else. And there are no right or wrong ways. Some don’t want to know. Some want to know everything. Some are curious. Some are less curious. And it is all of it acceptable.
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Exactly. People who judge, drive me crazy. You are not in their skin, who are you to give your two cents’ worth?
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Exactly!!! People don’t belong in boxes.
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🗃❌💞
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The emotions are gripping. Getting adopted is one thing, but then going to a different country is another with an alltogether other can of worms opening.
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Yes! And that not to take away from the lifesaving importance of adoption! Only to highlight the complexities of it, and the many feelings that it entails – often over years and sometimes many years after even the most successful adoptions – in the adopted person and their families.
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We all feel the need to belong somewhere. Hopefully she can find a home on her return.
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Yes! Hopefully she can find a place to belong in both places, and can reclaim her past without forgoing her present, in a way that will allow her to include her history, rather than choose between her roots and her upbringing.
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There are so many conflicting feelings for most people who are adopted. Some are fine with their lot in life and others go searching with a need.
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Yes, there are as many reactions as there are people, and no one way that is right for all. Including many who are fine with their lot in life AND are searching to know more about their origins and to find out more about their own history. It is very often an and/and, even in very successful adoptions. And, of course, there are those who have a hole to fill in their hearts, and whose searching carries a deeper need. And those who are not interested in searching and feel whole as it is. And all of those reactions – and many others in between – are valid and have a place. 🙂
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I hope she finds her place. It must be scary not to have one.
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I agree! I hope that the trip brings her closure, and I hope that she finds her place, wherever it may be.
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Na’ama Y’karah,
Beautifully written piece that runs on all cylinders. We all need that sense of belonging, don’t we? One can only hope she finds peace in her journey to discovery.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thank you, my friend! Amen to finding a place to belong and peace in one’s journey. It is not a simple thing for many of us, adopted or not, let alone for those whose stability was yanked from under them, or never existed in their early lives. And yet, it is possible to find purchase later on. As you know, from the water, on the beach, in little things, too. xxoo
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I felt your story in my gut and my eyes teared up. Having worked in orphanages in Asia, and seeing many children who were left then adopted abroad, I understand the difficult realities and questions and longings they have. It’s very complicated, isn’t it, our need for identity and belonging and a home culture? Wonderful story, Na’ama!
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Thank you, Brenda, for this comment! Yes, it is very complicated, and not often understood well enough. Attachment is a powerful survival need, and belonging and identity are often tightly intertwined with it, along with gratefulness, curiosity, grief, loss, anger, confusion, and so much more. My basic hypothesis is that if a child is adopted, there is an attachment rupture (or at the very least, an attachment challenge) there. Add cultural rupture, and you have the recipe for complex longing and belonging. Thank you again for this sensitive comment!
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