I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a wonderful experience that we had recently. Although our son, Matthew (age 9), has been able to see his birth mother and her two children several times over the years, his birth father, Armando, has always lived out of state and quite some distance from our home in the DFW area. In the last year or so, we have found Facebook to be a great way to communicate with him. We often post notes and pictures about Matthew and Armando is able to see his latest accomplishments and comment on them, which our son really loves.
Over the July 4th weekend, we planned a road trip in the direction of his state, and when we realized that we would end up within 7 hours of each other, we contacted Armando to see if he might be interested in meeting us somewhere in the middle. We worked out the details, and on July 4th Matthew and Armando finally got to meet each other.
Armando brought his young son and daughter – Matthew’s half-siblings – and everyone had a great time together at the local Independence Day festival. Matthew was visibly proud to get to know his birth father and siblings! And Armando made it very special for him – he brought two albums full of photos, with pictures of himself as a boy as well as all of Matthew’s biological family. Some of them had even written letters to Matthew. It was immediately apparent that they all care very deeply for him! But the cherry on top was at the end of the day, when Armando went to his vehicle and brought Matthew one last gift – his high school football helmet. Matthew wore it for hours afterward!
On the way back to our vacation spot we spoke of you, Leslie, and we recalled how you had encouraged us to participate in open adoption all those years ago. Because of your influence, our son knows both his birth mother and his birth father and their children, and the doors are wide open for those relationships to grow. He does not have to wonder where he came from, and we know that it brings him peace. Thank you very much for your guidance, and best wishes to you and all of your wonderful staff at Inheritance Adoptions!