Loki

Loki: What am I?
Odin: You're my son.
*****
Loki: You could have told me what I was, from the beginning! Why didn't you?
Odin: You're my son. I wanted only to protect you from the truth.
*****
Loki: So why did he lie?
Frigga (the mother): He kept the truth from you, so that you would never feel different. You are our son, Loki. And we your family.


I went to see the movie THOR for the second time last week. The first time I watched it I was so smitten with ... well, several elements that I only barely noticed the underlining story. This movie depicts one of the most awful things that some parents seem to think is ok but always does damage. Odin has taken a baby from another people and raised him along with his first born son without telling him that he is adopted. He does not find out until he an adult. After examining this movie more I could understand why a parent would not tell their child that they were adopted. Frigga explains to her son that the reason for the silence was because they did not want Loki to feel different.

Here is the lesson. It is what it is. You cannot just decide that the story will be different if you make up another one. The story is the story. It is hard for everyone to come to terms with who they are and for adoptees the task is doubly hard because of the fact the our story of origin is most often unknown. In some cases it takes adoptees most of their lives to work through that fact. I cannot think of a more horrific thing than to start your life with one story and build on that foundation and then when you have built who you are on that foundation to have someone rip that out from under you. It is hard to know who you are so it is always better to know as much of the story from the beginning as possible.

My own parents presented my creation story as something to be proud of and celebrate. I can remember growing up and talking to my mother about my birth mother. My mom would always say that she was grateful to my birth mother because out of her tragedy and sacrifice I was able to come to our family. My birth mother was someone to be praised. This did not diminish my parents role in my heart because we had been sealed together for all eternity. As a Latter-Day Saint (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) my family held a ceremony when I was a baby that introduced me into that family as though I had been born naturally. This knowledge helped me to feel cemented in my family while being allowed to think about my birth family.

Being adopted is something that I must deal with almost every day. It gets easier because I have already worked through these issues before. If I were to go back to the beginning of my story at my current age . . . I don't know if I would ever be Okay.

Thank you Mom and Dad for not making this a secret story and giving me this wonderful gift.