This photo is of the shack that my daughter Sasha’s mother was living in with other people. Adoption is a wonderful thing as a way to provide family and nurturing to children who need it. But adoption also inevitably involves loss. When I see this photo, I hurt for baby Sasha who didn’t have a safe place to live, and for her birth mom, too. As it happens, her birth mom died after Sasha had gone to live in the orphanage. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to be her birth mom and not to have a safe place to keep her. It is such a precious gift and a privilege and sacred trust from the universe that I have been allowed to be Sasha’s adoptive mom. I try not to forget that.