Dear God,

As I finished reading Doreen Virtue’s book, Assertiveness for Earth Angels, I found myself thinking back to the day I was born. It was, as you know, not an easy time for my birth mother or me as we both almost died in childbirth. For the longest time I blamed myself at some level for the challenges she went through. At the same time, I missed the experience of feeling welcomed into the world and spent a good bit of time in my life feeling as if I just was not good enough. It was as if I blamed myself for not being Jewish enough for my birth mother and her family to keep me, not being black enough for my birth family and his father to take me. Then when I was finally adopted, I battled to feel Jacobson enough next to my brothers who were biologically my parent’s children. I remember my brother once telling me I was not a real Jacobson. I have had to work at releasing those feelings and realize that the near death experience I had as an infant was a central and key part of my life and of who I am today.