Reflection of Where the Crawdads Sing

Have you read "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens? If you haven’t I won’t give any spoilers, but it got me thinking. Thinking about names, titles, and how we put our own meaning behind them when really they are just words.

“Marsh Girl” in the story is used negatively. It is the name the towns people call the main character, Kya. They make fun of her and adults don’t let their children near her. Overall, people use these two words to put down Kya and belittle her. In the end, it is something she owns. She is a girl. She is from the marsh and because she is from the marsh she can do things others who are not from the marsh can’t do.

Adopted. adj: of a child : legally made the son or daughter of someone other than a biological parent

It is a word and it is our perception of the word that brings meaning behind a word.

I am adopted. I could look at it two ways:

1. I could look at my situation as some woman was forced to abandon me. That made me have to leave the country I was born in and be raised in a foreign land by a man and a woman who could not have children of their own.

Or

1. I was born from a brave woman, who had enough strength and love for me to give me up and allow another loving family to legally be my parents, raise me, and call me their daughter.

It is my choice.

You have the same choice as I do of how you want to look at your adoption.

One takes acceptance and gratitude and the other will lay heavy on your heart and drain you.

You decide.