Page-Turner

We could’ve been a one child family, but we weren’t in control.

That sounds harsh but it’s meant to be reflective.

I went through a phase in college, marooned in the middle of Michigan in Mt. Pleasant, when I was obsessed with the notion that everything that happened was preordained. The way I figured this in my head was that free will was a phony exercise since the choices one would make were themselves predetermined. I stretched this thinking down to the most impressive minutiae, like it is preordained that I turn the page in this magazine at this moment.

Shall I say it was crazy making?

Anyway, I went through a similar thought process (or obsessive-compulsive reflex) with the addition to our family of the second, third, and fourth child. It was preordained, I told myself. My entire life was charted to lead to this singular moment. It may look and feel like a choice, but the exercise of choice is not real, like turning the page in a magazine. God or fate or some epic cosmic power has led me to this moment of turning the page in the magazine or adopting a child with a lot of health problems from a foreign country.

I look back now and realize that the notion of adoption decisions being preordained, predestined, written in the mysterious book of life that seems always checked out and not in circulation today, well, I realize now that I could’ve made other choices. I was free to make other choices, to say no, for instance. I didn’t exercise that choice, but I could have.

Here is where I need to say I don’t regret the choice I made. I say that and it would be true.

My children, on the other hand, didn’t have the luxury of appreciating their adoption as preordained. They just got handed over. Maybe now they think their being adopted and coming to America was preordained. We never talk about it. They’d think I was around the bend if I told them about the magazine page thing. They’d roll their eyes and shake their heads if I tried to explain. “What does that even mean?” they’d say. And the tone would be impatient and uncomfortable, either because they’ve no time to think about it or have thought about it too much.

This isn’t a piece of writing with a conclusion. It’s a reflection, after all, and those are often aimless and free-floating, landing where they will, at random. Contrary to much that has gone before.

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Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash