Adoption. To tell or not to tell.

My beloved Brenna came into our home by our choice to seek adoption. She was the precious gift of a loving God. God knew the future. He knew the day would come when she needed a mother who loved her unconditionally: one who did not need to “stop and think” about giving her beloved daughter life.

I will forever be grateful to a young woman who entrusted in me the most precious person to have ever come into my life. I loved Brenna before she was born, before I ever knew she was coming. I loved her all the days of her life. I love her still. Not loved, because love never dies. Always and ever, her mama loves her.

As Brenna grew, I pondered the right way to tell Brenna she was adopted. I had seen the personal and emotional devastation caused when my older brother discovered at 34 that he was adopted at birth. It didn’t help that I had learned years before him and not told him. But, it wasn’t my story to tell. His adoption was in another era, a time in our history when adoptions weren’t discussed. Family may have known but no one discussed it.

When I was eleven, my parents adopted my younger brother, Theodore Anthony Blaxton (Chisai). Mom helped deliver him. His mother was from a high class family in Japan. His father was an American GI who came home and “forgot” what he left behind. The nurse brought Chisai downstairs from the maternity room and handed that little baby boy, about five minutes old, to an eleven year old girl and I fell in love. My parents shared the story of his birth with him. His coloring was different than ours so it was obvious that he was not of our blood. As Chisai grew, he talked about the mother who gave him birth and always wanted to meet her. But, he never forgot who Mom was, the one who loved him unconditionally, who loved him forever and always.

Chisai was killed in a motorcycle/auto accident in April 1982 and never had the opportunity to meet my beloved Brenna. Eldon died in December 2003. He did see Brenna when she was a baby and again when she was six. Eldon was afraid I would not tell Brenna she was adopted. I could not do to Brenna what happened to him. Brenna had to know from the early stages that she was adopted.

I began by telling Brenna a story of adoption of a little boy. Soon she asked if the little boy could have a friend who was also adopted. I asked if the friend had a name. She said, “Can we call his friend Brenna?”

It did hurt when she was older and her friends’ mothers were having babies. She wondered why I didn’t have one. I had to explain to her again about adoption and how her mommie couldn’t have a baby come out of her tummy like her friends’ mommies.

Not long before Brenna became ill with her brain injury, we talked about adoption. I asked Brenna if she missed not having siblings. She said she didn’t. I asked Brenna if she felt left out or disconnected from family because she knew she was adopted. She said she was glad that she had known she came to us by our choice to have her. She felt that not knowing would have been living a lie.

She asked me pointed questions about the “what ifs” in my life. What if…I had read a letter my mother kept hidden for years from a man who wanted to “see” what could happen if we dated? “What if” I had married him? I told her that God knew she was coming and he knew we needed each other. I told her that the man in question had married the right person for him, that I had not loved him ever. I told her that God knew that if I made any other choices in life that did not include her father, I would have missed the blessing of having HER in my life.

I wanted to assure Brenna that SHE was a blessing. She was the day she was born. She was all the days of her life. She still is my biggest blessing.

Always and ever, my heart will love my only beloved daughter, Brenna Deshawn.