The Only Good News All Day

One of our board members sauntered up to me at the office this morning...held out this picture:

Wow. I mean, WOW. This is my grandmother.

Let me back up, clarify for a moment...my mom and dad are BOTH adopted. My mom's birth parents' identities are known to us; my father's aren't. My mom's biological mother, the woman pictured above, was named Beulah Grant Saunsoci, an Omaha Indian. My mom's dad, whose name I just learned this past summer, is Manuel Castro (of Mexican descent). But I've never seen a picture of either of them. Until now. I was blown away. Torrin got the formal explanation of adoption this afternoon. He'd had no idea that my mom didn't grow in our grandma's tummy like Aunt Joyce and Uncle Chris did. But she's still her mom. Then on the other hand, Beulah? My mom makes that face. She stands like that. My mother, who at 43 is five years older than Beulah ever lived to see. Thank you so much to the woman who brought in that picture, a woman who is my biological grandmother's first cousin.

Someday, I hope to see the photographic faces of my mom's dad and my dad's parents, too. His father is rumored to also be Native but we have no concrete evidence of that other than hearsay.