It is amazing to notice the different combinations in five children. Had I stopped at two kids I would have missed out. Not one baby has looked exactly like any others. Only one child was born with blue eyes. Having children is completely miraculous!
Being adopted is a different kind of miracle. I get to pretend that my eyes might look like my mother's and my nose must be from my father. Were they both the same skin tone? Am I not quite five feet because my mother was short too? There are questions I will never answer, but the mystery can be fun as well.
Every time I have a baby I think about the whole connection from pregnancy on. I must know the sound of my mother's voice. I am drawn to sounds that remind me of Bengali even though I don't know the language myself.
Certain parts of my identity might be hidden or lost. I don't know the traditions of the family I came from and I don't know the names of anyone, but my birth mother. If I had been raised in a village what parts of my personality would be the same? Would I still love the arts?
But I look at who I am now. I have seen a lot of the world. My experiences are unique to me. There is so much that takes the place of all the questions. I know a whole different family...new sets of traditions. A world I would have never explored is a part of me now.
I get to be caught in the middle of what if and now, but don't most people feel that way? It is different, but also the same. I must say that having my own children has in some way brought me back to guessing if my kids look like other people I am related too?
When my husband's family comes to visit I can see all of them in our kids. It is so fascinating to me to see how traits are passed down. In a way it is an unwritten history book of the family and somewhere in all my children are the traits of my family too.
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