Grief, Loss and Finding My Way Back

by Meseret Asresse, born in Ethiopia and adopted to Australia

I was born in Ethiopia. My earliest memories are full of family—voices that knew my name before I could say it, hands that held me without hesitation, smells and sounds that told me I belonged. Then, I lost my parents. There are no words big enough for that kind of loss.

My siblings and I were taken to an orphanage. Even though I still had pieces of my culture, the absence of my parents was a weight I carried every day. At age 13, I was adopted to Australia. I gained love and safety, but I also lost my culture, my language, my food, my landscapes… my way of life.

Adoption didn’t erase my grief—it added layers to it. I was grieving my parents, my home, and my culture all at once. For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me. But adoption is built on loss. That loss is real. It’s valid. And it deserves to be acknowledged.

Grief isn’t linear. It still visits me—when I hear a song in Amharic, when I smell roasting coffee, when I see injera on a plate. There’s a Welsh word—hiraeth—a longing for a home I can’t return to, or maybe one that never truly existed. That’s what my grief often feels like.

As an adult, I found a way back to my culture. I married my husband, who shares my Ethiopian heritage. Through him, our family, and Ethiopian friends in Australia, small pieces of my culture have returned—slowly, quietly, deeply.

It’s not the same life I had before. It never could be. But these pieces remind me that even after loss, identity can be reclaimed, reshaped, and passed on.

To my fellow adoptees:

You’re allowed to grieve.

You can love your adoptive family and still mourn your first family.

Both can be true. Sometimes, life gives us small ways to find our way home.