The irony of twice being named after a month and neither being the month I was born – my mother of origin named me June, my adoptive parents named me April and I was born in October – the calendar creates the perfect structure to explore some of the more complex elements of adoption, identity, and family one month at a time.

February is a particularly powerful month as we celebrate Valentine’s Day and honor Black history. Five years ago in an effort to better understand how my experiences of adoption have affected how I see and experience love, I wrote the first installment in the series: How to Love a Transracially adopted person. In writing the series I have peeled back the many layers of love and racial identity in service of my personal healing, the validation of other adopted persons, and the education for those that love us.

This year, I have no choice but to steer directly into what this past year has made even more clear to me in terms of my experiences of adoption, love, and differences of race, culture, and class. In this installment I am sharing how you can show love for me, a Black/bi-racial transracially adopted person, during a global pandemic and a time of urgency surrounding racial justice. The separation from family, the need to move with precision in the world in order to stay safe and healthy, and the overrepresentation of Black and Brown persons impacted by this unprecedented time are all elements that have emerged as poignant and palpable reminders of how I have been moving in the world as a transracially adopted person. I have also realized that digging into each one of these elements for all the right reasons, offers a unique opportunity to reflect on how the experiences of transracial adoption can be understood with more empathy and love.

Being separated from family hurts…

Loving a trans-racially adopted person means understanding that being separated from family hurts and sometimes I need a little extra love and understanding to process all the connections to family both family of origin and family of experience that are part of me. Keeping our loved ones safe during a pandemic often requires us to stay separated from family that may be older and/or immunocompromised. In essence, we know our family is there yet we can’t see them or hug them and as a society we are acknowledging that the separation hurts. For the better part of my life, I have been involuntarily physically distanced and separated from my family of origin. I knew that the family I was biologically connected to was out there, yet I could not know them or be close to them. Perhaps the pain of family separation that many are having to endure due to COVID-19 will inspire a deeper level of commitment to keeping family connections for those of us who have experienced family separation throughout our lives due to adoption. During this last year, I have thought so much about my family of origin- both my mother’s side that I am in reunion with and my father’s side that I am not.

In addition to worrying about the family I am adopted into and the one I am reunited with, I also worry about extended family members that I have not found as yet. I am especially concerned with the family I am still looking for which is my Black family on my birth father’s side. With both the pandemic and the urgency of racial justice I wonder how those relatives are doing. I usually keep my worry about this to myself as I worry that the loved ones closest to me in real-time won’t understand how I could possibly miss family I don’t know or have never even met. Most of the time, it is really hard to explain so I keep the tension to myself. Perhaps the pandemic with all of its heaviness can inspire more families connected to adoption to check in with the families of origin connected to the children entrusted to you. Especially White families that have adopted Black and Brown children to make sure that those families that are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and racial injustices are doing ok. This worry is real and I have heard from young adoptees that are also wondering how the families they were separated from are during this time. So as you are showing love and checking in on your people remember to check in with adopted persons young and old to make sure they know, while you may not be able to fully understand, you are willing to make soft spaces and get creative in a time that most certainly requires both.

Moving with precision is a thing and it is exhausting…

The pandemic has forced all of us around the world to think about where we go and who we are around. Even though not everyone wants to comply with directives that may keep us all safer, like mask-wearing and minimizing in-person gatherings, we have had to renegotiate our movements and maintain safe distance between the people around us. While moving with this kind of precision may be new to many people, being adopted and Black/bi-racial means I have always had to be very precise and think about the physical and emotional moves make. For as long as I can remember, I have had to be vigilant. Scanning my environments to be sure I am physically, emotionally, and psychologically safe. And at the same time, I am minding how my actions, movements, and words might affect others around me. From the transactions in a store, to group settings, to the actions and conversations with loved ones about adoption and race, being precise and protecting myself for fear of being hurt or hurting someone I care about is hardwired into my personal operating system. Now, with many more of us having to manage this kind of complexity in our everyday transactions in the world and feeling the emotions around these major shifts in how we do things, my hope is that there may be more grace in understanding the burden of those of us that have been operating in similar ways well before the pandemic made it mandatory for us all.

Losing more Black and Brown persons…

Both the pandemic and the racially motivated murders of Black and Brown persons have been particularly painful to me as I think about the Black family members that I was separated from. Each time I hear the statistics that more Black and Brown persons are dying due to Covid-19 and every time there is an innocent Black/Brown person murdered I can’t help but wonder if all of these losses of our Black and Brown brothers and sister are actually my Black and Brown brothers and sisters. I wonder if I will lose members of my family of origin before I find them. I wonder if they are ok and as I am worrying about them I realize I need people to worry about me and wonder if I am ok. I need my loved ones around me to recognize that these heartbreaking losses hit me different and I am losing part of myself.

Experiencing the pandemic and life as a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person are vastly different and yet, I have found that there are elements of how our lives have had to collectively shift that can shed light on the life lived by those of us in the extended family of adoption specifically those of us that due to foster care and adoption find ourselves separated from family and are persons of color. My hope is that while we are all doing our best to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, we are also finding space to elevate our awareness of what is needed to better understand, support, and love a community of persons that has long been deeply misunderstood and vastly underserved.

Deconstructing the calendar, writing this series, and sharing concrete examples to describe my transracial adoption experience has taught me how critical it is to explain the realities of my journey and to ask for what I need - Yes, even during a pandemic when everyone’s tank is running low. I have come to know that in order to keep shining my light and loving the way I do, I need transformational love from those close to me. The kind of love that works to understand me as a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person that is always trying to determine the physical, emotional, and psychological safety of every situation I encounter. As I continue to write, share the most complicated elements, and move with self-love, I see members of my family and loved ones working to understand parts of my journey that are really our collective journey. I see that while they may never truly understand what it means to be me, many members of my extended family both kin and kith are finding ways to love me through all of the injustices, systemic oppressions, and losses in the Black and Brown community and they are opening up space for me to process what it means to be loved and protected as a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person. Thank you, I love you!

How to Love a Transracially Adopted Person Part 5: Love in the Time of a Pandemic and Racial Injustice