I have long wanted to write a book about my birth. Not a book about me, but a book about being adopted, finding out later in life much about how that came to be, and the reams of people that I am shockingly related to.
Today, instead of writing my memoir, I am reading Deland McCullough’s adoption story in Runs in the Family, his book with Sarah Spain. The book was a Christmas gift from a colleague, and I appreciated her taking the time to find something that hits on so many important themes to me—my own adoption. The sport of football. The feeling of belonging.
Despite her thoughtfulness, I placed the book on my “get to it later” pile, which meant there were a couple of dozen books ahead of it in the queue. Take that as a sign that perhaps I read too slowly, or I buy too many books, or receive too many gifts. Chalk it up to a combination of all three, so 2026 needs to be a year when I consume a volume every week, despite my purported busyness.
A week ago, I was packing for a destination-birthday trip for a very dear friend. The fact that the journey started with her birthday and ended with mine is both coincidental and noteworthy. I am not a big birthday celebrator, and 2026 is no milestone for me, outside of the fact that we should celebrate being alive every single day. The more I thought about the bookends for the week, the more I realized that taking this book along with me to read was mandatory. Runs in the Family made the cut into my flight carry-on bag.
At this point in my reading, next to a clear blue ocean, Deland is in Grade 10 and pouring himself into sports. He has endured endless turmoil caused by a parade of evil men allowed into his life by his well-meaning, love-seeking, judgment-lacking mother. According to the text, she loves Deland and his brother, Damon, as much as any mother could. However, violence, cheating, abandonment, hunger, criminality, and instability are the constants in the children’s lives.
Fortunately for me, I had none of that in my childhood. In fact, it was the opposite; I feel guilty turning the pages of this book.
Despite the mass differences in our parallel existences from adoption to teenager, the storyline of questioning why I was abandoned, the mocking by other children for being adopted, as if it were my handicap or sin, and the refuge that the football field provided, are like staring in a mirror where both our lives are typed in the same font.
Deland’s story is his, not mine. Its power, though, is the lens it gives me to hear it as a different focus on my background. His book and story have now redoubled, not only as a thoughtful Christmas gift, but also as an emotional birthday reflection.
There is so much more than one more candle on my cake today.
MH3
PS: find the book here – https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Runs-in-the-Family/Sarah-Spain/9781668036280