The grief of transracial identity and having older adopted parents

Recently on a Saturday afternoon while one of my kids was napping and my husband was tending to the bikes in the garage, I hauled up to my office the clear plastic Sterilite box that has been in the basement and finally opened it. I had stuck a piece of paper on it months ago that read "Old family photos and Grandma & Grandpa mementos - need to sort," but I didn't need the reminder.

I knew it was there among all the other unmarked boxes. Every person on my father's side of the family is gone or lost to me and all I have left are the photographs and papers in this plastic box. It's an important box.

When my father suddenly passed away the month after our wedding eight years ago, just shy of his 50th birthday and just before my 23rd, to say I was overcome is woefully inadequate. There was so much grief I didn't know if I could go forward. I was close to my mom and dad and I knew losing a parent is unfairly difficult no matter your relationship. But it took me years to realize that I had not only had lost my father, but - because his parents were immigrants and are deceased, and he was an only child - also his entire history, my connection to his family and heritage, and any untold memories inside his or my grandparents' minds.

Many adoptees have untraditional parents. Adoption is not always a first choice for raising children, but for many families surfaces after the possibility of biological children is unavailable because of infertility or older age or being a single parent.

My parents met later in life. My mother was 38 - not an unusual age for a first marriage in the 21st century, but uncomfortably late in the 1980s - and my father was 32. They adopted my sister from South Korea a few years later, and then I came along. By the time I met my new family, my mother was 43 and my dad was 37.

His parents, the only grandparents I ever knew, emigrated from Cuba before Fidel Castro took power, and had lives likely full of excitement and intrigue that I will never know about. My grandfather passed when I was in high school and my sweet little grandma left us the summer after I graduated college. I was not old or wise enough to fully appreciate their history and ask them the questions I should have asked before they died.

So I was both excited and daunted by these remnants of their history. What will I discover in this box? What secrets might I find out?

I finally got the courage to start unpacking the contents. I carefully sifted through the stacks of black and white photos, looking at every single one hard, trying to figure out who was in the photo and when it was taken.

I found ID cards from my grandfather's first jobs when he arrived in New York. I found old addresses from Cuba, Brooklyn, and California. I found the program from my grandparents' wedding. My grandmother was stunning as a young bride. My dad and my grandparents used to go camping!

Yet there are still so many questions. Was this couple in this photograph my great-grandparents? What were their names? What part of Cuba was my grandma born in? Where exactly did she meet my grandfather? Do I still have family in Cuba who might remember them? Would they talk to me? How would I even explain who I am?

So many questions that probably will never get answered. I have weighed the time it would take to research the genealogy and track down family members from either my Cuban or Korean side, and don't feel that I'm supposed to invest the time and resources to figure out those answers yet. Some day I'd like to know more so I can share more of my story with my children, but I'll wait until the time is right. I have an amazing American family and now am married with my own children and God has given me great peace about that. I have a deep faith in a Father in heaven who never leaves me or abandons me or expects me to be something I'm not.

It's all a part of my history and I feel so lucky. My adoption story gave me a Cuban family, an American family, and a Korean family somewhere.

I am Cuban-American-Korean.

Photo credit: Kelsey Ramos-Conroy