Heritage

Before this cycle completely takes over my life, there is one more topic bouncing around in my head after our vacation that I want to address. As I said, I have quite a bit of Irish heritage in my background. We did not do any actual genealogical research, but I still sought out my family names everywhere we went. Many years ago, my Nana gave me some information on our family and said that her mother (my great-grandmother) was born in the the Connemara area of Ireland. I wrote this down and found it last year when my Nana passed away and I went through some things she gave me to reminisce about her.

So we headed out to Ireland with some family names and Connemara written down as tied to my heritage. Little did I know until we arrived that Connemara is actually a rather prominent place. It is known for the marble that is found there. In almost every store, you could find jewelry made from Connemara marble. And I think I bought every piece I could find. It didn't matter how cheap the actual piece was, I just wanted everything I saw made out of this marble as a way to grab hold of my heritage.

I began to think about whether we would be able to pass on our heritage to children. At first it made me sad. Sad to think about us never having children. Sad to think that if we end up adopting, we won't be able to pass on my red hair or our ethnic heritage. Sad to think that something will be lost along the way.

But then I started thinking of it from the child's point of view. My obsession with with this marble opened my eyes a little bit to the curiosity an adopted person (or donate eggs or sperm) has to their biological heritage. And that it has nothing to do with the relationship the child has with the adoptive parent, but is a natural inclination. And that made me a little less sad. I think I can try to remember how I felt searching out that marble to find some comfort and understanding if we do go down that road.