The Halper Family: Back row - Jeremy, Zachary; Middle row - Stacey, Linda, Rob; Bottom row: Rosie and Beauty.
While on a recent trip to South Africa, when we told our sons we would be out of touch, we nevertheless received a call from Jeremy, our adopted son, that he was moving to Texas to live with his birth father. Yeah, wow! Needless to say, it was a shock to our systems, and maybe why I ended up losing my blackberry on the trip. That was enough news to digest! Of course, we have complicated feelings about this. On the one hand, we are happy for Jeremy that he will be able to connect to a part of his life and his past. I think it is important for him to fill in the blanks and that his establishing a relationship with his birth father will be a healing experience for both of them. On the other hand, we feel sad that we will be in some sense "losing" him, though both he, and my wife and I, know that we love him, and will always be his parents, as we have since his birth, 25 years ago. I'm sure this story will develop. But in the meantime, I feel sad and pained, like something I've been used to, like a limb, has been torn from my life.
