So, tomorrow is my born date.  I wanted to spend the day with my birthmother, but this didn't happen.   My mother and I reunited quite a few years ago.  I wanted to ask her lots of questions about it.  She's not had the chance to tell me about her experience as a mom. When I first met her, she told me about the events surrounding my taking.  I was taken from her and put up for adoption.  I was adopted in 1975, three years before the Indian Child Welfare Act, not sure when the state took me.

 My birthday is a mixed occasion for me; happy to be alive, sad about what happened to my mom.   Adoptees are handed a legacy that is taken away from us when we are picked up and placed on another path.  Altho, it's not any different than anyone else's path, really, not any more significant or less, it just is.  For native America, it's strained, I guess.  I was taken because of my mother's skin color.  'The taking.'  My mom has not been right since.  As one would expect the event devastated her.
But now, like any mom, she gets mad at me because I don't call often enough or come to visit enough.  Which makes me smile, and close my eyes, and breathe deeply the essence of being loved.   Love has no conditions, no control.  It simply is.  I didn't understand how it worked with my son until I met my mom. My mom relates to me the same way I relate to my son.

Understanding how love works helps me to understand my adopted dad.  He simply loved me and gave me his name. Which is pretty significant to give a stranger your name.  I will always be grateful for him and grateful for my heritage.  My adopted dad walked on in 1995 and it seems I miss him more now than ever.  I miss him on birthdays.  Birthdays make me think of home, perfectly frosted cakes made by my step-mom, and the smell of forest; the smell of pine; sap; wild rose bushes, the sound of Omak creek gurgling.

My birthdays generally come and go. Nothing significant happens.  I joined a small online community a couple of years ago who celebrated it today.  That was quite lovely.  That will probably be the extent of it.