I remember seeing a white, colonial-style building fronted with columns
on the day I was left at the orphanage.
At least this memory was always in my mind, but knowing how insatiably curious I’ve always been about my biological parents, my biological circumstances, I knew that I may simply have been filling in the blanks of the great mystery that was my first two years of life. After all, I have absolutely no memory of the mother I'd lived with more than a year.
One day in my early twenties I returned to the Children's Home Society, the first time since being left there for adoption. I'd phoned a social worker who agreed to meet with me, to tell me some basic “non-identifying” information about my parents. As I searched for the address, the building came into view. It looked exactly as I’d remembered: A white building, colonial style, columns and all.
I don’t remember the foster family I lived with for the next six months and I don’t remember being taken to the home of my new adoptive parents. Many years later, my grandmother told me that during the first few months, every time the doorbell rang, I’d run and hide under my bed. It took me a long time to shake that fear, the fear of losing my home once again. Even now I still get the urge once in a while to hide under the bed.
~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Painting by Erin Payne
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