Yes, the eyes.

The other day, L reported, she was with D in a store aisle when he asked her a question.

“Why are my eyes squinty?”

Stunned, she turned to face him.

“I don’t want my eyes to be like that,” he said.

She knelt and hugged him, kissed each of his eyes, and told him how beautiful they were. That seemed to placate him.

I was shocked when she recounted the incident, and have been grieving about it since. The loss of innocence. The first clear sign we’ve had from him of discomfort with being different. Here it begins.

His outbust came at a time when I was feeling somewhat defensive, questioning the claims of adoptive mothers and others about how much adoptees struggle with racial identity. It seemed to confirm these claims. It woke me up (again).

The temptation, of course, is to (again) go back to sleep. To brush off this incident, forget it until it comes back to the surface and we are forced to face it.

The right thing is to acknowledge D’s discomfort, and to help him face it and surmount it. But how?

First, maybe, by facing my own uncertainty and fear. Not letting this become a bogeyman that gets pushed back into the closet.