A Reddit post from a 37-year-old man who shared the remarkable story of his adoption journey from a Thai orphanage has left internet users in tears.
David Keniston was born in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 7, 1987. Abandoned at birth in the hospital, he spent four years in Pakkred Babies’ Home, during which he was unaware that his biological brother was living on the other side of the orphanage.
Keniston told Newsweek that he doesn’t remember anything about living in there, but the details of the first four years of his life have come from family stories, photos and VHS tapes from his mom, grandma and aunt.
David Keniston
Keniston’s parents applied for adoption in Thailand in 1988 after finding that India’s adoption programs were closed. In 1989, the orphanage informed them that Keniston couldn’t be adopted without his younger brother.
“The babies’ home wouldn’t allow us to be adopted separately, so my parents decided to adopt him as well. If they hadn’t chosen us both, then we would have gone to a family in Colorado,” he told Newsweek.
In 1991, Keniston’s mother, grandmother and aunt traveled to Thailand to bring them to Portland, Oregon, on February 20. As part of Keniston’s Reddit post, he shared two photos of himself, Granny and Aunt Bobbi on the flight to the States.
“The first American food I had were French fries at a McDonald’s in Thailand. The first food I had in America was pizza and I didn’t know how to eat pizza. I ate [it] upside down,” he told Newsweek.
Despite traveling with relative strangers, Keniston wasn’t fazed and wrote in the comments section of his Reddit post that he wasn’t scared at all. “In fact, the story goes that I loved every new thing I saw, so much that it worried my parents lol. I would go up to strangers and hug them. Dogs got hugs too. The only thing I was afraid of were ladybugs.”
David Keniston
Keniston’s brother, on the other hand, was finding it difficult to adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings and would cry a lot during his first few years in America.
“I didn’t realize I was different than most people in my classes until way later because I didn’t understand skin color and what adoption even was. My parents were my parents to me, no matter what skin color they were,” Keniston told Newsweek.
The boys grew close, but both struggled with attachment issues due to early abandonment. The 37-year-old explained in the comments of his post that he initially viewed his biological parents’ abandonment as a chance for a better life, which made it hard for him to attach to anyone.
“Our two views of abandonment conflicted with our attachments and so we separated for a while. We eventually came back together,” he wrote.
Today, both Keniston and his brother are successful and happy in the work they do, he told Newsweek. They are still close, attending birthday parties, playing board games and going to family gatherings around the holidays.
Keniston has dealt with long-life anxiety but copes by engaging in hobbies such as hiking, nature and astrophotography, reading and writing. “I want to start painting and have taken up making pop-up cards for greeting card celebrations,” he added.
The brothers visited Thailand back in 2006. “We also got to go back to our orphanage and my brother’s caretaker still worked there and she recognized his Thai name and they reunited,” Keniston wrote on Reddit.
For Keniston, family doesn’t have to be blood relatives or even someone to call mom and dad. “Only being related by blood should not be an indicator of family. Family can be who every is around you and cares about you.”