My heart felt warm and fuzzy when I read the title of this article:

Meeting Birth Mother Is 'Overwhelming Gift'

How often are birth parents (not expectant parents or adoptees) referred to as an overwhelming gift, especially in the media? It's pretty rare, just to let you know. The article made me cry. I know I'm emotional as it is but it's just too darn rare to see a beautiful story like this anywhere in the media and I felt so grateful that not only had the two shared it but that the newspaper had decided to run with it.

More over, the adult adoptee in the reunion brought up her extended family which does include four sisters.

"It's an overwhelming gift," Bush said of her extended family, "and the gift that keeps on giving and giving."

I know not all reunions can go this beautifully. I know, as well, that this family will likely encounter some hardship or issues that are hard to deal with for one or all. But, at the same time, article like these give me hope for my birth parent brothers and sisters who hold a flame of hope in their hearts for reunion. It gives me hope for the adoptees to whom I have spoken regarding their dreams of a happy, loving reunion. It gives me hope that our media will start running more of these stories and find less and less of a source for the dramatic, no-good, scary stories of adoption and reunion. It's true, of course, that bad things will always happen but my dream is of a day when the good stories outnumber the bad. My dream is of a day when the bad stories are a part from the norm in our media and from our own lips.

It will happen someday. I have to believe that it will happen someday. And that will be an overwhelming gift to our children, don't you think?



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