This week’s episode of This is Us was so painful and powerful for me as an adopted person. I have grown up with people around me getting their physical attributes compared to their parents. I think about what it would actually feel like for someone to say, “You have your mom’s or dad’s eyes”. What a normal comment in the life of many but foreign to mine. We all have those personal things that make us feel alone and separated from the normal.
Such a moving moment for me when Randall comes face to face with his birth mother deep in the waters, ie. the spirit, of the lake she lived next to and swam in all her life. She says, “You have my eyes.” Then she follows up with, “I see so much pain in them.” There is not only the recognition of the physical shape of the eyes but a kinship of the weight and pain that comes from separation. She knows that pain, she carried that pain and knows what that does to you. I look at those eyes of Randall’s and see my own. The way that all that pain can weigh down the corners or deceives onlookers as you cry in silent pain. And yes mama I am tired. I am tired of this pain I hold and maybe I just need to scream in your waters to let it go. Mama, i am tired. I am tired.

“Most people never find that kind of love. Not even for a summer…To extraordinary love”

Follow my trip from New York to Seattle