Lynn Grubb

As National Adoption Awareness Month comes to a close, I felt compelled to get some things down on to paper (so to speak).  Mirroring our political climate, the adoption community has had many divisions as of late which have caused me to pull back on the multiple commitments I have had in past years.  I disabled my Facebook for most of November and stayed away from my I-phone, the news and tried to focus on non-digital projects in the safe cocoon of home. While working on an organization project of documents, I came across some information related to my reunion I had forgotten about and felt triggered by.  In response, I created my own personal pity party (which mirrored the collective trauma that many adoptees experience during National Adoption Awareness Month). Over the holiday weekend, I received a wake up call from the Universe that there is something bigger than just my/our own personal and individual experiences of adoption.   And it is this:   we need to have an eye towar

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ande at The Adoption Files blog.  Ande is a late-discovery adoptee (LDA) who is a phenomenal artist and writer.  Please join us for the first episode of THE ADOPTION FILES PODCAST where we discuss the records adoptees receive during their lifetimes and how genetic genealogy/DNA has become a game changer for adoptees from the closed era. You can listen to it here .

Three weeks ago, I received word from a Peruvian cousin Claudia who I am connected to via Facebook that my father is dead.  “He now enjoys the presence of God” she stated.  She sent kind wishes to my family.  As I processed this information over several days, in between crying on and off, the doubting part of me said, “Is it really true?” Could it be a ruse so I will go away?   I know that this sounds ridiculous to anyone who grew up with their biological family and has always known the identity of their parents.   But it doesn’t sound crazy to those of us who are adopted. As my friend Pam says, “Let me stand in front of his grave!”    My relationship to my father is not considered equal to those who are raised by their fathers. Our relationship has not been socially sanctioned or acknowledged by those in authority.   There are no records to prove our relationship.   Some consider it a non-relationship because of my being legally adopted. However, I am here to tell you that

Have you recently become or are you considering becoming a kinship caregiver?  Kinship caregivers could be family members or friends of a child.  What makes them “kin” is that they usually have an established relationship with the parent or child but are not the child’s biological parents.  Many are grandparents or great-grandparents or other relatives of a child. Kinship carers are very important to all of us as they step in to love, care and provide for a child who would otherwise go to foster care.  Kinship caregivers are the unsung heroes of family preservation.  I say unsung because they do not get the financial support they deserve. They also struggle deeply with bureaucracy such as custody, child support, government benefits, and childcare. On top of providing basic needs, sometimes a kinship carer's immediate family does not provide the emotional and practical support that was hoped for.  Many are faced with tough decisions such as removing custody from their own child. If

  While we collectively experienced the pandemic of 2020, it collided with all the other events that happen to each person on the planet.   Even during this monumental world event, we still have to make money, feed our families and keep our mental health in check.  All of it takes a lot of energy.  Looking back, it seems like the world went into survival mode and we are just now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.   Entering back into the student role again in my 50’s has been interesting and it seems I am once again being thrust into a new Heroine’s Journey ( highly recommend these 9 podcasts about that! ).   Biology is king (and queen) in genealogy.  Should adoptive relatives be added to your tree when they aren’t truly your genealogy? (you can ponder that ongoing debate for yourself.) For me personally, in 2020, I experienced several events collide at the same time: my husband’s near-fatal heart attack, a family member’s mental health crisis, and the conclusion of my

When I was growing up, like many others, I was fascinated by Alex Haley’s miniseries, “Roots”.  It aired in 1977 when I was 11.  I hung onto every word of every episode.  When I was older, and I could get the entire miniseries at the library, I checked it out and watched it again.  I believe the reason that show had such an impact on me was because the story of Kunta Kinte was passed down through his ancestors.  Each generation kept the story intact for the next and it connected them all to each other.  They were proud of who they were, and they never forgot where they came from.  This knowledge of their people gave them an identity during years of slavery, separation and other traumas they endured.  I longed for the family stories of my ancestors as a child.  I would have given anything to have an accurate understanding of who my people were and what kinds of challenges they overcame – to know what they valued, loved and why I came to be separated from them.  Without that knowledge, I