Thursday 5 May 2016

Why Did You Choose Us?

That was the question I was confronted with in the car today on the way home from school.

I often wonder why these conversations always seem to happen on the move, I guess it's simply because we are in an enclosed space, with nothing else to do. I looked out of the window pretending to see where we were going.

'Don't do that,' KC said, 'don't try and avoid the question... I'm asking you a question. Why did you choose us?'

'Well,' I started, ' we looked at profiles of lots of children, ' (I wasn't going to tell him we spent nearly two years ploughing through profiles, that we had three failed matches and that their profiles were our last attempt at the whole adoption thing).

'When I saw your pictures then I knew you would be our children,' I stopped him from speaking, 'I can't explain it, but when I saw you and your brother's photo I just knew it was right.'

I expected that to be the end of it. But no.

'But why have children, why adopt?' I looked at him. Had he heard the countless arguments where we had asked ourselves that very question. The times we had nearly given up, the times when it really didn't seem worth it. Of course, we came through that phase, but what parent doesn't occasionally miss their years of pre child freedom, although you cannot underestimate the pressure that adoption places upon a couple, upon a family.

'I mean, adopting children is hard work,' he went on, ''Normal kids (his words, not mine) don't go to therapy, they don't cause as much trouble, they don't get angry and break things, they don't make their parents quit their jobs. You gave up everything to be our dad,' he said, 'Why did you do that. You love acting why did you stop?'

If I wasn't driving I would have burst into tears, purely at the depth at which he had obviously been thinking about all this. I wondered how long he had been playing with these ideas.

'but, we have you,' I said, 'Yes, it can be tough and yes we do have our problems, but all families have problems at some point. We just have to remember to be able to talk about them.'

'I want to look at the picture,' he said.

I looked at him.

'The picture in the magazine that made you choose us,' he went on, 'I want to see it. I want to see what you saw.'

'Ok,' I said, 'I have it still. You can see.'

He nodded. We came home.

He walked through the door.

'Let me know whrn you want to see the photo,' I said.

'It's alright,' he replied, 'I don't really want to see it."

He then rushed on out to the park to play football with his brother.

I sat down and wrote this.... My therapy.

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