This weeks assignment was really intriguing for me, as it is a question  I think about often regardless of academics. For this blog I am just going to lay my life story on the table, it is the best way  I can explain my sense of home and my values.

My story starts about three years before I was even born, my mother and father, Kathy and Jim, had been trying for quite some time to get pregnant and start a little family. Sadly my mother was unable to conceive and so for about two years they wrangled with the idea of adoption.

One day while at work my mother was recounting her troubles and possible adoption with a friend, who just happened to have another friend, Kim, who was putting her baby up for adoption, it was a match no one could overlook.

So my parents flew from Colorado to Texas and met Kim and her boyfriend, but not the babies father, Sonny. All four hit it off right away, Kim loved my parents and they loved her. Fast-forward nine months and little baby Ralls, or as she is known today Elizabeth, went home to Colorado as my parents first child.

My parents were overjoyed with their little girl and Kim was happy she gave Elizabeth a better shot at life than she could provide. I’ll stop the narrative now to point out how incredibly brave Kim is, this goes without saying but her heart is one to be marvelled at.

Two years later, my parent’s telephone rang, it was Kim, she casually asked them if they wanted another baby. Again it seems the fates intervened as my parents had just began talking about adopting another child. So like with Elizabeth my parents flew down to Texas and met with Kim and Sonny, who was the father this time. Another family was hoping to adopt this baby so my parents really wanted to make a good impression, luckily for me they did.

Along came May 21 and I popped into the world premature and blue ( I had decided I wasn’t quite ready to begin breathing). My mom was in the delivery room and shared a truly blessed moment with Kim as the doctors whisked me away.

Everything seemed perfect, Kim and Sonny knew their daughter would have so many wonderful opportunities in life and my parents welcomed little baby me home. Sadly this bliss was not as smooth as Elizabeth’s had been and about three weeks after my birth, Kim and Sonny decided to try and raise me on their own. It was a part of the adoption agreement that birthparents had the right to take back the child for up to six months.

My parents were devastated, everyone was. My father met Kim in Colorado and sadly handed me over, my mother couldn’t be there, she was trying to comfort Elizabeth who couldn’t understand why her baby sister just disappeared.

I only learned of this story about seven years ago when I was thirteen, so every time I am writing here was once unknown to me.

Then as quickly as I had been taken back, Kim and Sonny realized I would have a much better life with Kathy and Jim and so again they  called my parents, who quickly came to Texas and finalized the adoption, this time leaving no room for change.

Nothing else happened except for being raised by incredible parents who allowed to know that I was adopted and to form a relationship with my birthparents, for me it has never been a question of who my parents are but a statement of how many people I am lucky for. I have my mom and my dad and Kim and Sonny.

I wrote about this story because for me it has shaped who I consider my family, all of them, and what values I learn from my own story.

I don’t really consider home a place but rather a feeling and for me it is when I am near my loved ones, I have moved a lot in my life and have had my parents living in two different countries, and my sister in another for almost five years. Yet I do not feel like I have no home, rather my home is where they are, where my heart is.

I learned to value bravery and love above all else, both my parents and birthparents are the strongest people I know and I will always look up to them, what they did  for Elizabeth and I is an act of love I can only dream of experiencing. They opened their hearts and put their vulnerabilities out there in order to provide for my sister and I. I am eternally grateful for all of them.

I strive in my everyday life to be as open and brave as they are and to keep what I consider my home close to my heart. I am so lucky to be where I am today and I have my family, which is every growing as I make my own special relationships, to thank for that.

Wherever they are that is where my home is.