The gratitude I feel now is genuine — but it is not for being chosen to be adopted. But the worst thing people said was: Your mother wanted what was best for you. Wasn’t the best possible life a child could have the one they had with the mother who gave birth to them? I could mourn my now-deceased birth mother and love my adoptive mother, who shares a Thanksgiving table with my family today. The gratitude I feel now is genuine — but it is not for being chosen to be adopted.

---