It was my 53^rd birthday, and I had just received my “23 and Me” DNA Kit – ironically arriving on the day I was born. I was scared to open it and take the test right away, so I waited a week to submit the DNA kit through the mail. At the end of the month, my biological father was revealed to me.

Shortly thereafter, I started having flashbacks of another 23 and me … me, at age 23, when I found out I was adopted at birth in the spring/summer of 1991. At the time, I did not understand the irony of every human being having 23 chromosomes and me learning at age 23 that my biological identity was not what I thought it was. In 1991, when I lost my adoptive mother and met my birth mother that same year,  I struggled with the tug-of-war between nature and nurture and the divided loyalties between all the extended relatives on both the biological and adoptive side. This was the most difficult year of my life ever. I had just graduated from college less than a year earlier. No amount of prayer or education could have prepared me for the loss of my mother who raised me, the search and reunion with my biological maternal side, the care-giving that I would eventually be lending to my adoptive elderly father and eventually a great-aunt years later, and seeking what I needed to move forward to be loved again.

We were all born into this world for a purpose and on purpose.  We are all children of God and we have a right to be here, as well as to feel loved and a sense of belonging. Some of us have had two parents, some one parent, some raised by grandparents, some were in foster care, some are born poor, middle-class, upper-middle-class, or privileged, and some of us weren’t planned by our parents at all. However, we are on this Earth as a part of God’s master plan. It is our birthright to be happy and healthy always … every day in every way. One of my life coaches once told me that if your heart is beating and your lungs are breathing, than you deserve to be loved. This statement stayed with me and keeps me on the path to my existence here on earth.

The Book of Psalm 139 and Verse 14 says, “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.”

There is no other person like you in this world. Your DNA is what makes you unique. You bring extraordinary talents and skills that make you shine bright when you walk in a room. Your days were planned out from the beginning once you were conceived, baked in the oven, and then delivered on the day you were born. 

Psalm 139 and Verse 16 says, “You saw me before I was born, every day was recorded in your book.” This scriptural verse is a testament to our lives and especially for adoptees.

For me, around June 1967, I was formed in the womb that brings forth life. I was pushed out into the world on Friday, March 1, 1968 at 9:44 a.m., weighing seven pounds, nine ounces and measuring 20 inches long. It’s interesting to me that my life was beginning during such a pivotal time in history. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had paved the way for the next generation, while his life was ending at the young age of 39. One month and three days after I was born, on April 4, 1968, an assassin’s bullet killed Dr. King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

I was given up for adoption at birth in the former Women’s  Medical College in Philadelphia. On March 6, 1968,  I was placed in a pre-adoptive foster home until May 21, 1968, when my adoptive parents came to get me to give me a new identity and raise me in my new home. However, from kindergarten through college, I didn’t know about my adoption. It was a secret for 23 years of my life. When I found out from one of my relatives, I asked my adoptive father how I was chosen out of all the other babies and he said, “You were the cutest one in the bunch.”

How indebted I feel to him and my mom for adopting me during that tumultuous year and while all of the other Civil Rights pioneers were putting their lives on the line, advocating and taking a stand for justice or getting in “Good Trouble” as the late Congressman John Lewis has always said. All in an effort so that future generations like myself would not have to go to colored-only bathrooms, drink from warm-water fountains, be refused admission to attend public facilities, or not have the right to vote.

My adoptive parents yearned to be parents and believed in education, for having a strong work ethic, being on time for work and school, being physically fit and well groomed, going to church on Sundays, having family dinners, and watching television every evening – the news, as well as family sitcoms like The Jeffersons, Good Times, and other shows with homegrown values from the 1970s and 1980s. Additionally, we celebrated birthdays and all federal government and Christian holidays, and I was raised to be respectful to our neighbors and elders.

Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” As an adult, I have remained steadfast with keeping my adoptive parents’ survival messages and traditions during this “journey” called life. They have kept me grounded, both career-wise and personally. Now, I have finally come to grips with my true, biological identity and I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my life.