The Interloper

By Adrian Jones

I share exactly 0.0% DNA with the people with whom I share a last name and my childhood. I don’t look like them. Never have. I have lived nearly five decades as an adoptee.

Regardless, my adoptive family is my family. They raised me and cared for me. They taught me important life lessons and good values to live by. I had plenty of opportunities to grow and little to want for. They provided me and my younger adopted sister a very good life and supported us during the difficult times.

For the most part, we were accepted as one of them across the many branches of the family tree. (There’s a small limb on my maternal side, however, that did not accept me and my sister). While I share a last name with my parents and am legally their child, there’s always been some part of me that feels like I’m not them. To be sure, I am a Jones and our family traditions will be carried forth by me and my children. The family tree will remain standing; I have no intention of cutting it down. There is no doubt about that. All the family histories and lore are as much a part of me as the clothes on my back. In a way they are what keeps us together.

My parents loved us with all their hearts, but there isn’t any amount of love that can fill all the holes created by one’s relinquishment and adoption. I have found it hard to shake the fact that, as an adoptee, I’m known throughout my family as that — an adoptee — someone who came from another genetic line, a limb cut from another tree and grafted onto theirs. When the Jones family gets together, I’m cognizant that they share DNA that I do not.

Three years ago, driven by medical necessity, I charged full steam ahead into finding my biological parents. I found them, still living, along with three half-sisters. They are lovely people who have welcomed and accepted me. Both parents had buried my existence into complete secrecy since the day of my birth, and outside of their respective spouses, no one in either family knew of me. Once I arrived on the scene, both parents came clean with their families, immediate and extended, and the cat was officially out of the bag. The relinquished child had returned.

I’ve been so welcomed that they’ve invited me to mini family reunions on both sides, and I’ve met uncles, aunts, and some first cousins. On the outside looking in, I think it would appear that our reunion story is that of a heartwarming Hallmark movie, and I think in many ways you could make that argument. All things considered, it’s gone very well and I am grateful for that.

These reunions, as with so much about adoption, are complicated. I’m surrounded by people with whom I share a large amount of genetic material and I can trace physical commonalities between us. I love this. By physical appearances alone, I feel at home. I belong. I am surrounded by my blood.

But commonalities end there. While we share genetic material, we do not share history, traditions, family lore. We are missing these things that serve as connective tissue. Stories roll off their tongues as they naturally do when families get together. I am a stranger to them. I feel like I could have been there for them if only people had made different decisions about me several decades ago. They wear their family’s history like a comfy pair of worn-in jeans, but these jeans do not fit me. In fact, I do not want to try them on. At times, it’s hard to hear their stories and memories. I wasn’t there for them. For any of it. Am I supposed to be excited to hear them? Am I supposed to adopt the stories as if they were mine? So far, I cannot. I’m an outsider looking in.

I love these people. I truly do. And our relationship is deepening into really meaningful places. As we unpack decades of separation and learn to move forward together, I’m hopeful that our collective future will bring beautiful experiences and memories. We’ll begin our own family history and lore with a rather unusual start date — one with much of our lives already behind us. I’m fully committed to building upon our relationships, but I know there is a moat between us created by time, separation, and life events.

When we get together with many members of the family and I look like others, it’s nearly impossible to not feel conspicuous. Why is this?

I’m the adoptee who showed up at the front door, pushing fifty years old, with decades of my life behind me, and behind them. How much of an outsider am I? What level of intrusion does my presence bring? They assure me there’s no intrusion, but I cannot help but feel it. In the presence of my own genes, I am an interloper.

Sometimes, when we are together with their extended family, I wonder if they collectively sing this song from “Sesame Street” in their heads, a song that haunted me in my youth.

One of us is not like the others

One of these things does not belong

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

— Adrian Jones, an advocate for adoptees and heart health, lives in Marin County, California with his wife and two children. Visit his blog, An Adoptee Shares His Story.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.