Adoption. Warmhearted and welcoming friends and family. Random thoughts.

I did not prepare this short post in advance. It has just come into my head.

I think “Random thoughts” are allowed. After all, this blog is entitled Adoption Reflections.

This week I am due to attend the funeral of a great family friend. She was Sam’s godmother and was always very fond of him. Originally she came from Northern Ireland and had hardly met any black people until she met baby Sam

We only ever experienced acceptance and love from our family and friends in respect of our two adopted sons, so I feel so grateful.

I was always extremely at ease with the whole idea of adoption. Maybe this is because my best friend at school was adopted.

Last December I wrote about two Memoirs by adopted people. Since then I have read a few more. They are all books I recommend:

“Survivor” by Fatima Whitbread

“Why Be Happy When You could Be Normal?” by Jeanette Winterson

A beautifully written book I can recommend is “Mother Country” by Jeremy Harding.

 Recently a Facebook Friend asked me whether I had seen a programme about Jamie Baulch (Olympic silver medal-winning sprinter. ) It was a programme on BBC1 Monday 17^th November 2014 “Looking For My Birth Mum”. I was grateful to her for bringing my attention to the programme.

I found it extremely interesting. I liked the sound of his adopted parents and was most impressed by the careful approach of the social worker. She tried to prepare Jamie for the possible pitfalls of searching for his birth mother. These could include death of the birth mother, rejection by her, having kept his existence a secret from others etc. As it turned out, he discovered that he had a half-sister and he was able to meet his birth mother, who had always been open to her current family about the fact that he existed. All went well, although his birth mother has lung cancer and is not expected to live very long.

Here are two more names of some famous people who have spoken about being adopted.

Steve Jobs (of Apple computer fame)

Lemn Sissay (world renowned poet, whose father came from Ethiopia)

I’ll be off to Sam’s godmother’s funeral on Thursday.  She was a very good friend to our family.  I’ll be giving thanks for her life.

Here end my Random thoughts.