The sudden death of a dear friend last night has me thinking about life and death. I’m not going to write a long-winded post about how life is fleeting and to take advantage of every moment you have with your loved ones, although I could. Instead I want to talk about what happens when an adoptee searches for the birth family and one or more of them have passed. I have one friend who found her birth mother who told her that her birth father had passed years ago. She was really sad about it, of course. It makes you feel like you don’t have that closure we so desire and need. We need all of our questions answered and the death of that person just causes more questions like, what would it have been like to hang out with them now or what would they think of me and how I’ve turned out. Adoptees face so many uncertainties and fears and insecurities when it comes to our birth families and facing the death of someone you didn’t know but who had everything to do with who you are is difficult to deal with. Although I didn’t experience it myself, if I put myself in those shoes, I feel like I would need to have some sort of “ceremony” where I lay that person to rest. I would want to go to their grave, talk to them, pray to them, and then put them to rest in my head. What you cannot do but are inclined to do is focus on how unfair it is. Yes it is unfair! Get that anger and sadness out of your system, accept it with your own ceremony, and move forward only focusing on the living. I know there are many of you that have experienced this so tell me how you dealt with it or if you have great advice for others, please share!