When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

     Many of you may not know, our daughter, Fiona, was adopted by my husband and me when she was an infant.  Her story is quite unique since she was born in Northern Ireland and brought to us here in California by her birth mom when she was seven weeks old.  It was not considered an international adoption like those from China or Ethiopia since it was privately arranged through a lawyer, not the involved government authorities.  Because of this, it took us over six years for Fiona to become a US citizen. The upside is, she could have dual citizenship should she choose.  We have always maintained a relationship with Fiona's birth family and have seen her birth mom, whom I will call Erin, a number of times over the years.  We have always felt, through all the literature we have read on the subject, that this was the healthiest and best thing for Fiona.  And it was what Erin wanted as well.

     Last June, we got word that Erin had just found out that she had cancer.  She was told there was a good chance she could be treated successfully and began chemotherapy immediately.  Fiona was naturally very upset by this news and wanted to go to Ireland as soon as possible to visit Erin and to have some of her questions answered.  Now that Fiona is fifteen, adoption has become a very important issue for her.  She wanted to know why she, as well as two other birth siblings, were placed for adoption while Erin kept her three other children with her.  My husband Rich and I have always tried to be as honest and open as we could be about the circumstances of Fiona's adoption.  And Fiona has always been open about and almost proud of being adopted and her Irish heritage.  But becoming more mature and more aware of such things, as well as Erin's illness, made Fiona desperate to find out the "truth" from her birth mother herself.  Fee wanted to leave tomorrow and stay all summer.  And she wanted to go all by herself.

     Though Fiona has traveled to Europe and Asia with me on Symphony tours, and flew to Denver last summer by herself, she has never traveled alone internationally.  Rich and I weren't about to let her go by herself or for that long to a place neither of us knew.  Plus Fiona's passport had expired and we didn't have a lot of money to spare for airline tickets.  We just weren't that crazy about the whole idea.  But we did, at Erin's urging, get Fee a new passport, made hotel arrangements, and bought TWO round trip tickets.  I asked for, and got, a week off from the Symphony (very supportive of them) to accompany Fiona to Ireland.  I finally realized that, should Erin suddenly die, Fiona would have lost forever the opportunity to find the answers she wanted.  Of course, Fee wanted to go for a longer period of time and go BY HERSELF.  But, simply put, she wasn't going unless I went with her.  And we thought a week in a strange place with a lot of unknowns was sufficient.

     Erin comes from a large family which was directly affected in a serious and tragic way by "The Troubles," Northern Ireland's fight for independence from Great Britain.  Her father was in the IRA and was captured and imprisoned by the British when Erin was a baby.  Much of this has affected her entire life. Fiona is now mature enough to grasp the gravity of this and to better understand Erin's story.  But I truly felt that Fee needed my support while she was there.  So in early July,  Fiona and I took off for Belfast International Airport. 

     We were totally jet-lagged as we got off the plane and were met by Erin's sister, Molly and her young son.  Erin was having a chemo treatment so we went directly to Erin's other sister, Shannon's house for tea and a quick nap.  I'll never be able to sleep, I thought to myself as I lay my head on the pillow.  But the next thing I knew, an hour had passed and Erin had arrived.  She was so happy to see Fiona, that that moment alone made the whole trip worthwhile.

To be continued.....