Lissa: "KC, that is just the weirdest picture."
KC "I know, right?"
LIssa: "Everyone but Ooma is black in that picture--even YOU look black, KC!"
KC cracks up laughing at this point
Ironically, there are a lot of things about this picture that strike me as a parent, other than color differences. The fact that Lissa looks so much like R who is standing next to her. R is J's last child and she is raising her and doing a great job. I am struck by how much Fi looks like her birth Mom. I remember the relief I felt once I got J comfortable and she wasn't crying any more and remember thinking that this kind of healing may be pretty rare in adoption circles. For me the snapshot was symbolic of so many years of working on that healing.
I guess I was startled to hear Lissa tell KC that "even he" looked black. I have black friends in whose families the degree of darkness of skin tone is always a topic of discussion. Kind of like the whole "good hair" thing. We obviously are not like that, but I guess there is work yet to do.
I did have close friends imply that I must have felt awkward in this picture. Um, nope. Do I look awkward? While I'll give you that photos are not my strong point, what jumps at me here is that we are happy. Squished in together happy. And frankly, I think when you adopt transracially, as a parent you need to be willing to step into situations where your kids are the majority and you are not. There are so many times when it is the reverse. And if it is your family--the family you wanted with every fiber of your being, it isn't a hard thing to do. At least for me, it wasn't. And I'll give you that i am a very gregarious, pretty optimistic person. But it still wasn't hard. :-)
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