What A Week, Rainbow-Wise

This has been quite a week for rainbows in our house. First, our Rockmeister crossed the Rainbow Bridge to a peaceful rest. Then little Dolly joined our family and her light is shining through our tears to create more rainbows. But then, darn it, I read a post by an adoptee/social worker, farting copious adoption rainbows.

Her post was a complete flight of fantasy. I would copy and paste but that is against the forum rules. It ran the gamut from the usual "good adoptee" paeans of praise and love for her adopters, and frequent use of the "b" word, to how lucky children are that are born to "Hero B****Mothers" (her term) who love them enough to give them away. I felt the urge to regurge.

The bitch of it is that I think this person truly, at least to her conscious mind, believes this crap. To believe otherwise would be a scary proposition for her. Her purple, pink, yellow and green prose evoked images of the fatuous smiles of religious cult fanatics. I can almost see a bumper sticker saying "Smile, Adoption loves you." And, oh yes, she did imply that adoption is all God's idea. Poor God. Whatever He/She is, He/She gets both blame and credit in areas I think He/She would rather avoid. But then I have learned, sadly, that the God of most folk's understanding is created in their own image. I once heard someone, I don't remember who, say, "There is a God and his name is Ego."

I had an image in my mind as I read that post. I saw, amid all those specious, precious proclamations of the wonderful nature of adoption, a little girl, hiding in the corner of her mind, shutting her eyes tightly so she can't see the monsters. That little girl is just as confused and sad as any other adoptee who has been deprived of roots, heritage and, most importantly, their natural mother. So she has constructed an elaborate defence made of rainbow colors, unicorns, fairies and angel wings and plopped herself deep in the middle of this airy fort by making her career one of doing to other mothers and their children what was done to her and her mother.

Usually, I get angry and frustrated when I read such drivel. I will admit to a bit of frustration, but, more than anything, I just felt sad for this woman. I imagine that her arms and hands are very tired from holding on so tightly to that unreal world of hers. And that baby girl inside her psyche still cries for her mother.

I have to shake my head at the society that allows so many myths to make up the fabric of life for so many. We're taught terribly skewed history in schools. We're bombarded with dogma and miracles rather than love and acceptance in church, we are suckered in by false promises from politicians, and many of us live with that 800-pound gorilla, smack in the middle of the room, and never acknowledge him. Hey everyone! Reality can be harsh but it can also be wonderful. You take it all as part of the fabric of real life.

This poem, one whose author is unknown, calls us out as wasters of real rainbows. That might be the reason so many people reach a point in their life when they are all out of them...no more rainbows, and that's sad. If you don't have one or two tucked away, then you are ripe for terminal depression.

Rainbows Are Not For Everyday

Rainbows are not for everyday …
Their essence is transience,
The bitter sweet poignance
Of a beloved who died young.
Born from the slow dying
Of a million rain drops
They cast a magic spell
Of laughter and tears
On all my empty days.
Rainbows are not for everyday
I keep them folded away
For a rainy day.
Till a magical fragment
Of memory
Explodes …..
And they blaze across the sky
Setting the day afire
With their radiance.
Overtaking me with the wonder
Of an undeserved gift.
Rainbows are not for everyday.
A rainbow is a bridge
And a bridge is for passing
You cannot hold a
rainbow in your hand.

Oh, but don't so many of us try?