Ancestry and Adoption

So, a couple of things have been on my mind a lot over the last year, but especially so in the last week or two.  Several months ago I began researching my family history.  I scanned a bunch of pictures my grandparents have of relatives and shared an account on ancestry.com with another relative that I didn't meet in person for another 6 months! :o) (She and my mom know each other, but I had never met her.)  As I began finding people I'm related to and getting to write a few stories down that I've heard since I was little, I found myself wishing I could have known more of these people.  My great-great-great-grandfather came over from Ireland as a stowaway (or so the family legend goes) and it wasn't just because he couldn't afford the fare.  Evidently he'd done something awful that the family just doesn't talk about.  (Supposedly my great-grandfather knew what he'd done, but he died laughing on his death bed because he never told anyone and he just thought that was hilarious.  No fair!  Inquiring minds 50 years later want to know!!) :o)  But I find myself wishing that families didn't have the need to keep secrets.  I wish I knew more about my Dad's parents, but neither of them were real big talkers and my Mamma died when I was 7 so I never got to ask her the questions I would have liked to.  And now that my Pappa has passed, I won't have the opportunity to ask him either.  I wonder what secrets my grandchildren and their children will want to know about me someday.  Or will they even care?  I, unfortunately, didn't care until just a few months ago and by then many of my relatives have gone on.  It's challenged me to write down the stories about my parents and grandparents that I can remember so that someday I will hopefully have children who will be able to know their family.

So, that leads to the second topic that has filled my thoughts of late.  Adoption.  It's something that I have always been intrigued by and when I was young I thought it would be so much fun to adopt a child from every culture around the world.  :) I had big aspirations.  But in the last few years, adoption has been something I've seriously thought about and prayed over.  Due to a medical issue that I was diagnosed with 3 years ago, it's possible that I won't be able to have my own children.  This was something that it took me awhile to come to terms with, but as I've faced other things related to this condition recently, adoption has taken on a whole new fascination for me.  How awesome for your children to be able to say they were chosen by you.  I would love to be a home for a child who didn't have one.  For children who didn't have one.  I've told my friends that I wouldn't be good at working in an orphanage because I'd want to take them all home and the more I think and pray about it, the more that really becomes my hearts cry.  To be able to take a child home.  I realize there is a lot to this idea, but someday, whether I can have biological children or not, I'd like to adopt.  And share my ancestry with them. :)