Tag Archives: adoption story

You Can’t Choose Family

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On occasion I write about something other than Turkiye and today is one of those times.  In many ways my blog is a journal allowing me to clear my head and cleanse my soul (if you believe in all that loopy stuff).  Writing down the words that I am feeling takes away some of the pain and hardship that surrounds the events and, well, I just feel better for it.

Family collageMany of you will recall that I am adopted.  I am not emotionally scarred from being adopted nor have I ever wished my life to be anything other than what I have been gifted.  I love my adopted family.  I may not always love their decisions or their choices but I will stand by my family because that is what they are – my family.

My Dad was the master of all things good and my mum, who may not have always been the best mother, was the best that she could be.  I also have my brother who, I will admit, has not always been my best friend or my biggest supporter nor I his but we have forged a relationship that (I think) is strong and everlasting.  I have lost both my Dad and my Mum now but I still have my brother who has a wonderful and extended family that I am blessed to call my own.

While I do not want to go into the details of this post (for fear of no doubt long retribution and probable legal action by the party involved) I will say that today I am closing the book on one part of my life.  This part of my life was ugly and full of anger, jealousy and hatred.  This person was a devious creation and she and her awful family have caused nothing but angst and sadness for me and my brother but today, finally, I can say hele şükür! (Good riddance!).  I hope to never cross their path again in this lifetime.

Now I plan to move forward and build an even stronger relationship with my remaining family because we are strong and we don’t take no shit from nobody!

#yeahIwentthere

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Remembering Dad

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I was not going to do this today.  I was going to keep today just for me.  Hold it in.  Put it in my box where all my feelings live.  But he would not want me to that.  He would have told me a (rather blue) joke.  He would have told me to get over myself; to pull my head in.  But I woke up this morning and I knew straight away.  I knew the date.  I thought about ignoring it but then my sister in law posted something on her FB page.  I miss him too.

I am not going to cry tears of sadness today.  Today will be a beautiful day.  Today will be a day of happiness and good memories not traces of sadness from years before.  There will be no talk of grief or of death.  No talk of cancer or pain.  Just happiness.

Today I will dream.  Today I will wish.  Wish for just one more day with my Dad.  One more smile.  One more joke.  One more chance to say I miss you.  What would we do?  Anything.  Nothing.  We could sit on his old patio overlooking the creek and laugh about something ridiculous.  Or we could have a steak at the pub … and laugh about something ridiculous.  As long as we are laughing then everything will be fine.  And we would be laughing because my Dad was fecking hilarious!

Let me introduce you to my Dad – with a happy story.  Maybe two happy stories.  Maybe more.

He was a great guy.  He was a smart ass.  He used to make me laugh.  He still makes me laugh.  When I told him I was pregnant his reply was, “Well that’s what happens when you have sex.”  When he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day he whispered, “Good job staying a virgin.”  I laughed out loud at that one as Daughter was carried down the aisle two minutes earlier.

He was not my biological Dad but blood does not make you a father.  Love makes you a father and he was the best one that a girl could ever hope for.  Sure he would get angry too, really angry.  He would yell.  He would punish my brother and I.  He had a belt and it didn’t just hold up his pants, it kept us kids in line too.  Once he threw the cheese knife at me – boy I would bring that incident up whenever I could.  “You tried to kill me,” I would cry.  “Next time I will try harder!”  Excellent smart ass reply.

In 2003 Daughter and I spent a week with Dad in Rome.  We visited all the usual tourist spots, did museums, galleries, went to Capri for a few days.  We ate delicious food and built wonderful memories together – father, daughter and granddaughter.  This is one of my favourite photos of Dad.  We had sat down for an early dinner as my flight back to Turkey was later that night and he ordered a beer.  When this pool sized beer arrived he laughed.  “A challenge!” he said.

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He blitzed that challenge.

Today will be a beautiful day.  A day of happiness.

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Loving this blog? Please help me build my audience and share with like minded people who, love their dad and love Türkiye. You can also subscribe or like me on Facebook for all updates.