Each holiday season...

As I sit in here in a very privileged position, every holiday season reminds me of how lucky I am and how much I have to offer! But it also reminds me how much I have been given and how it is only by the grace of some God some where that I'm here. As one of my post discussed, I was adopted by a wonderful African American family and given access to things that I would never had access to, like a great education, stable living environment, opportunities to travel and go to college and most importantly, the opporunity to be me, without the poverty and struggles my biological family dealt with. You see I was given up for adoption at birth, and I was the only one given up for adoption, and in 1965 when I was born, there were not a lot of African American families adopting children in Minnesota, particularly children who were bi-racial(a new term, I always considered myself black). The reason I know all of this is because my biological family found me several years ago, and I have many brothers and sisters who grew up here, in St. Paul with each other.

I also realized from a very young age that I was blessed to be with my parents, not because they were perfect or my childhood was different from the friends...it was because my childhood was similar to my friends and we were not "different" except for the color of our skin and the culture inside our home, which was different from our neighbors.

As I continue to grow every day with every interaction, I remember both the good and the pain. The pain of losing my sister, Lori, at age 40 two days before Christmas, 3years ago, when she was only 39. Then the pain of losing my best friend and advocate, my father, Perry, only 6 months later. He died of a broken heart. That year, and every holiday since then, is a reminder that nothing is promised to us tomorrow, not even our last breath, so we should live our lives today as if tomorrow is our last, so that we treat each person, and every community and those that we love with deference and respect no matter where they fit in the social hiearchy! Because I know that my biological mother, died at age 46 and my biological father, never learned to read and write, but they produced me, a lawyer, a mother, a daughter, a friend and a good citizen. So what could someone like me do if given a chance...

Please give something that keeps on giving this holiday season, a donation to a charity of your choice, your time at the homeless shelter or food for the food shelf. Because all people deserve dignity at this time of year, if not every time of year, but this time in particular, when it is so easy to get caught up in the "team of me" that we forget how I, can become we and how we can make a difference.