About the Author: My name is Alex Marking. I am 17, I go to Greenhill School, and I was adopted from Paraguay. A couple years back, I went on a trip to

Paraguay with The Ties Program. This year in school, we were assigned a project that revolved around something we felt strongly about. We were encouraged to give insight to the issue we chose, and hopefully “Change the World”. I decided to do mine on adoption and pull from my own personal experiences. I wanted to use the project as a way to dig within myself and figure out exactly how I felt and thought about my own adoption. I wrote both a poem and a children’s book. The poem I wrote allowed me to get my emotions out on paper and share personal experiences and feelings. I was finally able to share with people that I had not previously been sure how to convey or share.

For the last part of the assignment, we were to choose a place or organization to send our work to hopefully make a difference and “change the world” for someone else. In my case, I hope to give some sort of understanding or feeling of not being alone to a child or any person who may be confused about being adopted. I know that at a younger age I was unsure of how to feel, and I hope this work, in some way, helps someone, even just one person, understand that they are not alone in these feelings. I chose the Paraguayan Ties Program to share my work with because I have had a personal experience with the program that helped get me thinking about where I came from and what it meant to be adopted. The trip was one of the main catalysts that helped me start my journey to self understanding.

Thank you for helping inspire this inner search and I hope my work can help change someone’s life for the better.

Alex’s Poem

Everyone is different
With something that helps define
Who and what we are
That I’m adopted, that is mine

I’m not saying that I’m special
Or that I’m the only one
But I can proudly state
That I embrace the place I’m from

Flowing through my veins
I got red, white, and blue
Not just for America
But for Paraguay too

Two different flags
Both a part of me
Making up my heritage
And who I’m proud to be

I knew that I was different
I remember what friends asked
“You don’t look like your parents”
“I don’t get it, why is that?”

But even though I knew it
I never took the time
To try and grasp the concept
Or turn it over in my mind

Sometimes it takes a painful event
To jolt a train of thought
I remember the words of my friend clearly
That he shouted as we fought

I don’t remember the argument
But I know what shut me up
He said if my parents loved me
They would have never gave me up

I began to question
Wondered if they cared
It’s hard to feel connected
To someone who was never there

But as the years went by
I understood my mother
She let her son be taken
To be raised by another

She didn’t have the means
So she found someone who did
To take me into their family
And raise as their own kid

She spoke for me
When I didn’t have a voice
And though it was difficult
She helped me make the choice

The future that she thought
Gave me the best chance
To succeed in my life
To progress and advance

And as a tribute to my mother
The one I never knew
I do my best to push myself
At everything I do

I strive to do my best
And if she could see me now
I hope that she’d be happy
I hope that she’d be proud

Alex, aka Nelson’s Book for a Child

Thank you Alex. You have indeed changed the world. Thanks for sharing!