A continuum of love.
On the new John Lewis Christmas ad, fatherhood and a different kind of paper chain.
So! The new John Lewis Christmas ad.
I saw the teaser last night—the tree being wheeled down a residential road on a skateboard.
(Spoiler-avoider: before we go on, if you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here).
Will caught it this morning, before me. ‘If you want to start the day with a tearjerker, watch the John Lewis ad,’ he said. ‘You’ll see why’.
I braced for another parents-tiptoe-past-sleeping-daughter-to-hide-dollshouse-in-the-loft classic (one circa the mid-nineties, which, until today, has always been my favourite).
I definitely didn’t see this one coming.
Ever since, I’ve been thinking about all those whose stories have involved fostering, adoption or both, and what the ad says about all it means to draw the circle of family bigger than we might.
As I wrote about in my last newsletter, before my mother and father brought me home through adoption, I was cared for, briefly, by foster parents. I’ve long wished that I could find them, to thank them for giving me the gift of family in the way they did and tell them about my childhood, our family and my family now. Because they are a part of that story.
There is a family line there, too.
A continuum of love.
A question of focus
I love the way that the John Lewis ad puts a focus on the father’s perspective. In the same way that I and many others have written about all the ways there are to be a mother, the narrative here shifts to fatherhood.
A few weeks ago, a friend and I went along to charity fundraiser in someone’s garden. Still warm enough to sit outside, everyone sat at long trestle tables, Mediterranean-style, as all the children roared around us.
I found myself sitting next to a dad of two young boys. As we talked, it transpired that he and his wife were, in fact, giving foster respite care to the brothers.
We would never have known. He was just being a dad.
I’ve thought today, too, of the foster mother I once knew who told me she always makes photo albums for the children who come into her care, for them to take with them, into their futures.
I’ve never forgotten that. I treasure our old family photo albums and the photos of my brother and I growing up in the Seventies. They bring a particular kind of comfort.
They are something of a map for me (more on this in few days).
When I think of our family, I visualise a child’s paper chain of people, holding hands. Linked by love and story.
I have brothers and sisters I love deeply but who have never actually met. Yet, for me, they are, through some miracle of life and love, brothers and sisters of a kind, too.
The next chapter
Last week, I posted a video about our story to Instagram, and I’ve had the kindest of responses.
The personal messages have been beyond moving. Two from adoptive mamas mean more than I could begin to put into words.
Watching the John Lewis Christmas ad this morning has made me want to revisit the idea of tracing the couple that fostered me all those decades ago.
In a journal tucked away under my desk, I’ve written down the name of a contact at the south west London local authority through whom I could take the first steps. Apparently, some files in the archives were destroyed through flooding, years ago, but others remain.
I’m not sure if mine was one of those which survived, but I’ll share what happens here.
In the meantime, thank you so much for reading and, most of all, sharing your stories with me.
Pic (top) via John Lewis, and (bottom) from kiddley.com on Pinterest.
I did NOT see the end of that ad coming! 😭
Thank you for sharing your story!
Your heart of gratitude for all those who poured love into your life, and to all the others who are in need of fostering, or as you beautifully put it, “a continuum of care,” has moved me greatly. I hope you can find those dear foster parents. Thank you for this post. 💕