Adopted for Life

My first encounter with an adopted child was in 2005. He became my friend and my father respected his father. The couple was not able to bore a child and they must have decided to adopt. They loved and pampered him, and when we played together, I used to be amazed in wonderment by his collection of toys. By 2008, we parted ways as my father got transferred. I met him again briefly in around 2015 when he was making his plan to go to Australia for higher studies. I am not sure whether he was aware back then, but later, obviously, he knew that he was adopted, and his parents didn’t make him feel any less. 

Later on, I got to know that my teenage crush who lived in my neighborhood, is also an adopted child, and for the same reason- the couple was not able to bore a child. I had a lofty attraction for this girl and cherished each moment spent with her. Her mother talked softly, and his father seemed a simple man, and my memory of him is of him smiling. Later a boy was born to them, and I think that I know, and I hope that their love must not have lessened for their adopted child.

Steve Jobs’s unmarried biological parents, abandoned him as an infant and deemed him “unwanted” but then he was adopted by a couple. It could have looked to a third person that this boy was doomed for life, but, we know what intuitively successful person he turned out to be, taking Apple to amazing heights. However, such cases of abandonment should not happen to anyone.

The former president of the USA, Barack Obama, has correctly said:

What makes you a man is not the ability to make a child, it’s the courage to raise one

This is what so many people who know how to love a child have actually done. One of my favorite movies is “Lion” starring Dev Patel, which is a true account of a child who got lost in a train, encountered evil-intentioned humans, and through the grace of God, or luck got adopted by a loving Australian couple. Later on in life, this man, haunted by his memories of the distant past, went in search of his biological parents, and with the power of the internet, he was able to find them. I sincerely recommend this movie which is based on the book called “A Long Way Home” written by the man himself- Saroo Brierley.

Once when I was discussing adoption with a colleague, she said that she would want to adopt a “cute” baby someday. Although I am not the kind of person who tries to shun others from sharing their ideas, beliefs, and opinions, still I felt the need to calmly tell her, “in adoption, you do not “choose” a baby; it is not a commodity.” In fact, as I’m writing this, I realize this, it is the other way around- the baby chooses you to love him. It is God who gives one the opportunity to be of service to such a child.

If one is a dog lover, one can also adopt a stray dog. India is typically replete with roadside Indian Pariah dog breed, which wanders in search of food, whose eyes I have seen wet with anguish, perhaps hunger and thirst, and who need and reciprocate as much love as any “exotic” breed of foreign dog can give you.  One can adopt any living being who is in need, and with your love, you can make their life worth living.

Parenthood requires love, not DNA. I sometimes feel that I too would want to adopt a child someday. I always cherished this idea, about bearing the responsibility of a child who was biologically not mine, but whom my heart and soul knows to be mine. I fathom this does require immense strength of love to accept a child, who you know to be not bearing your genes. I do not know as of yet if I will do this or not, whether I will have the courage to adopt a child, but I will take this into consideration, and understand if it is possible for my heart to surrender my ego to such a child and consider it ‘mine.’ 

When I told this idea to my father, he said that adoption is meant for those, who are in need of it, and not just for the sake of it. I do not see many thriving examples of adoption around me, even though so many innocent children are in need of it, so, I can understand how sparsely popular this noble deed of adoption has been. My father was talking from a conventional front, and he was not wrong in his own point of view. But, as far as I’m concerned, I want to spread kindness as widely as possible, with all my heart. Thus, I might adopt a child in the future and, if I do, I will dedicate my life to the welfare of this child. You can pray for it that this happens.

All in all, I feel I’m myself adopted by Swamiji, who loves us, by his choice, even though, he need not. Why cannot I, or we, keep up this chain reaction, and adopt a living being? If by any chance, you’ve adopted a child or an animal, or plan to, or if you feed the hungry, the diseased, or the needy, I would like to know more about it in the comments section. Let us spread the chain reaction of kindness. That being you adopted or helped, would always decorate you in their eyes with love and gratitude, and God himself would feel grateful to you to be of help to Him.