One goal for January is taking time to really appreciate my Special Day. Sit back and think about how truly blessed I am and have been my entire life.  What other way for a photographer to do that than to make a picture collage? So here is my life….pixelated.  My childhood, my family, my hubby, and my kids. So here ya have it, the story of my life, in pictures. I’m warning you now, I am going to get very personal in the next few paragraphs. Don’t feel pressure to read, you can skip ahead to the pictures if you’d like. This is the most personal (and longest!) post I have written and it’s for my own personal reasons that I write.

For those of you who are like, what the heck is a special day? Well, it’s the day I was adopted. I was born to a young unwed mother. She was very young and couldn’t give me the care I needed to at her stage of life. So I was put up for adoption. My parents couldn’t have kids and had put their name in for another adoption, waiting and hoping. The agency told them there weren’t many girls available these days, so just plan on getting a boy. When they got the phone call my mom was ecstatic! She would be happy and satisfied with whatever baby God would give her, but deep down she really wanted a girl. So you can imagine her excitement. They had all boy clothes from my older brother, so she loved stocking the closets and blankets of pink fluffy things.

Years go past, life is good. We move from Chicago, to Alabama, and settle in Williamsport PA. This is where I spent the majority of my life. I always knew I was adopted, my parents were always up front with me. They raised me in a God-centered home, where our beliefs and trust in God weren’t questioned. In the back of my mind though, questions always lingered. Why did my mother give me up for adoption? What was she thinking? What is she like? What does she look like? Do I look like her? I wonder how life would have been if she would have kept me? And these questions stayed with me.

I loved my parents dearly, and couldn’t have asked for a better set. Even during my rebellious teenage ‘I hate the world” phase, I never questioned the wonderfulness that was my mom and dad. But I still had to know. I struggled with this for a long time. A loooong time. I talked to my parents about it, and when I turned 16, they agreed to look for my birth mother so I could meet her if she was willing as well. I went to counseling to prepare myself for this meeting, making sure I was letting go of all my expectations and what ifs. I had to go into this meeting with an open mind.

That was hard to do. I was incredibly selfish. I wanted to know! When the counselor said I was ready, my parents said it was time, the moment I’d been waiting for had arrived. So I went and met her. Finally! I got to talk to her, see her, feel her, touch her, just be with her. I met the rest of my family, the rest of my very large family. My cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents. It was the classic family reunion. After that meeting, I finally had…..peace. All my questions were answered. I finally knew.

It wasn’t until a few years back, while remembering the situation how difficult that had to be on my parents. My desire to know the other parts of me had to have put so much doubt in their minds. I wonder what they were thinking and how I made them felt. I have been so grateful for the life they have given me, I look back and regret not making it more clear how appreciative I was and still am of my upbringing.

I wouldn’t be who I am today with the complete unconditional never ending love of my parents. And I tried my hardest for awhile to get them to stop loving me. And they never did. Not even a little bit.

I am so blessed to have a mom that celebrates life more than anyone I know. I am so lucky to have a mom who would let me always win at board games, bought me paper dolls every time I was sick, took me to the Nutcracker every Christmas, cut up my apples in small medium and large pieces, and asked me everyday if she had told me how much she loved me. I am blessed to have a mom who drove me everywhere, let me try every hobby I wanted, and let me be me, even the versions that weren’t the best of myself. I have learned how to love by watching and experiencing the love my mom has. I am so blessed to have that same woman as not just my mom, but my best friend.

I am so blessed to have a dad who is just like me, exactly. We were so similar when I didn’t feel similar to anyone else. I am so lucky to have a dad to build sand castle with in Gulf Shores, who took me trick or treating and wore my clown wig to make me giggle, who went on roller coasters with me when no one else would, who could tell me hard truths and I would actually listen. I am lucky to have a dad to not just speak a life that was Christ filled, but live it. I am very lucky to have a dad who can answer any question I have about God, grace, or doubt and answer with a Biblical truth. I am lucky to have a dad who could walk me down the aisle and then marry me to my best friend.

I am so blessed to have a brother who’s such a punk. I looked up to him in so many ways. I am thankful for our times together, even though most of our life was spent fighting. I am blessed to have a brother who used to practice wrestling moves on me when we were little, but I still wanted to spend every second I could with him. I would even trade my favorite stuffed animals with him for 20 minutes of Brad-time. I am lucky to have a brother who always held family first, who beat up boys that hurt me, and always took care of me when I was making stupid mistakes.

I wouldn’t be who I am today with my family. I wouldn’t be a Christian, I wouldn’t know absolute truths, I wouldn’t know how to love, I wouldn’t know anything about music, and I would have never met my husband. I wouldn’t be married and have the wonderfulness that is my family now. I wouldn’t have my ‘mini me’ Chloe, or my ‘he is as cute as he thinks he is’ son Colin.  It’s because of the strong structure that my parents gave me, that I know what family is. That I can have my own family now. I hope I am as good a parent as you have been for me.

Mom, Dad, and Brad, thank for you a life of you. Thank you for giving me a life of grace and unconditional love. Thank you for showing me what it means to be a family.

I love you,

Ash