November is a busy month. I have and will recognize some of the events individually, but I’m combining three important causes that are recognized this month.
- National Adoption Month: This year the focus is on adoption of older youth. Most people want a baby, but older children need families, too. Our son was eleven when we adopted him. I can tell you adopting an older child is not easy. Although every child waiting for a family is unique, many older children have been abused, rejected, and shuffled from foster home to foster home or institution. Building trust and love takes time and effort. But it’s not easy parenting your own biological child, either. Being a parent isn’t easy–but it’s worth it.
- National Diabetes Month: Diabetes is important to my family: my mother died of complications of diabetes, and her mother and all her siblings also suffered from diabetes. Jack had diabetes and required daily insulin shots; he also had Alzheimer’s and that condition made managing his diabetes more challenging. I have diabetes myself, but in the last couple of years, I have worked very hard to eat a healthy diet, and my diabetes is under much better control with less medication. Several of my good friends also suffer from diabetes, so you can see why I’m recognizing a month dedicated to raising awareness of this condition.
- Military Families Appreciation Month: While I’m not in a military family, I want to honor those families who are the wind beneath the wings of our military members. We sometimes overlook the sacrifices they make–moving often, being separated from their loved ones and worrying about them when they are deployed to a war zone, and a lot of stress that most of us don’t have to deal with. I learned a lot about the life of military families when I edited the book Base Jumping: The Vagabond Life of a Military Brat. Author William Willis tells about the sacrifices, but he also writes about the close bond that develops between military families and the other benefits he enjoyed as a military brat. Though there are benefits, we still need to recognize and honor our military families for all they do.
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