I’m so happy to be safely back home.

It was kind of surreal to find myself wandering around Phantom Ranch for the past four days.

I first went there 40 years ago, and much of it is the same as I remember it. We had the place to ourselves, so that was different.

Can you believe I faced some fears going back there? There was nothing to be afraid of, but 20 year old me was afraid of everything.

They’re in between seasons, and soon the whole camp will be full of campers again. Still, it felt a little bit like a ghost town, and I’m glad of that!

I visited the porch where I was eating my birthday breakfast when I got a phone call telling me that my grandmother had died. Until this week, that was my last day at camp. I packed up my stuff that morning and left for Maine. It was July of 1983.

I was sitting on the dock there when I learned “righty tighty, lefty loosy.”

I had forgotten the smell of camp.

It’s a good smell of oak trees and closed up cabins.

I keep having opportunities to revisit places from my past. Not only revisit, but explore, and then gently close the lid.

Once again, I have been happy to stand back and watch my daughter connect with her birth family.

An adopted person once accused me of ripping my daughter from her mother’s arms, and told me I was wrong to say she was mine at all.

My daughter’s birth mother and I have both played a role in her upbringing, and what we have now is a large and loving rainbow colored family.

We each keep our separate treasured memories of this lifelong process. We have both nurtured her and brought her safely to this day.

Today our hearts are heavy. All we can do is try to carry on in spite of sadness. We hold each other. We have no guarantee of tomorrow, just hearts full of memories, and this day. This day to open our eyes and see each other. To open our hearts and decide. To love… to be a family.

I stand back and observe. I see a room full of people that look just like her.

Because of her, these are my people, too.