Letter To Santa

 

Dear Santa,

I hope you don't mind me calling you by your first name. I have long known that you are not real, but, since I am entering my second childhood, I am going to suspend disbelief for a bit.

I have a long list for you and I urge you to hurry because much of this needs to be done BEFORE the holidays.

First off, I would like to see all the adoption records and Original Birth Certificates opened for both Mothers and Adoptees, without exception. I think that we have been maligned enough and our children have been denied enough to suit the Puritanical idea that we should have been punished for being human. Infant adoption should be a very last resort kind of thing and could we try that legal guardianship thing? I would like to see the concepts of social engineering and the importance of money removed from that equation, and special efforts made to keep Mothers and their infants together. We both know, don't we Santa, that is the way things SHOULD be?

Now for some toughies. Can you do something to deep-six Citizens United, Corporate Personhood, ALEC and the Dominionists? They are sending the world to hell in a hand basket in the name of the almighty dollar and ignorance disguised as ideology. Could you make the media trustworthy again and restore journalistic ethics? I know it's a tall order, but I have been a very good girl. If you could scuttle DOMA, too, that would be wonderful.

As I am sure you know,(for I am sure word reaches the busy environs of your North Pole Headquarters) we are in an election year. A little special consideration to the current POTUS would be much appreciated and really good for our country. Oh, and there is a big list I will be sending you of some people for your naughty list, Tea Party Members, John Birchers, KKK members and a bunch of Republican Governors. If you could see fit to engineer their disbanding and defeat, it would be a Merry Xmas, indeed!

How are you on reversing global warming and protecting the environment? Our businesses and governments have not done a real good job at this. In fact, the North Pole might be snowless and iceless if  fossil fuel craziness and emissions and pollution aren't halted. They are cutting down the trees faster than we can grow them. I have four great-grandchildren who might never again see a glacier or a wild animal or a forest if greed doesn't turn to green.

How busy are your elves and can you spare some of the heftier ones? I think the breach in the wall between church and state needs to be repaired and made stronger. For those of us who are not religious, the protection of that wall is essential. Those dedicated fundamentalists can be vicious! One even wrote a letter to the editor of her local paper, demanding that all atheists be run out of the country....and the editor printed it! That was a real "face-palm" moment for me.

It goes without saying that I would love to see an end to war, racism, sexism, and all the stuff that people do to make themselves feel like the big cheese and make others seem unworthy and expendable. If we can stop hating and stop fighting, then we won't have as much poverty and crime. I mean, as a species, aren't we supposed to grow up at some point?

Now, I don't wish anyone ill or, Dear Me No, dead, but there is a state called Utah.........I guess not, huh?

I'll have wine, cheese and goodies waiting for you, Santa. If they are not to your taste, I'll just have to eat them myself. It's fun being a kid again.

Love and Thank You,

Your Friend, Robin

Beheading The Hydra

"The Hydra is first mentioned in the Greek myth of Hercules, in the golden age of the culture (500 to 300 BC) when the hero, as one of many jobs, had to kill the Lernaean Hydra The most famous of the Hydra species.

The descriptions vary, but they always mention an aquatic serpent like creature that lives in a subterranean cave in Lernea Lake in Greece. It is described to have many heads (the number can vary from 3 or 5 to 10 to 100 to 1.000 and even to 10.000); the reason for this is that when you decapitate one head of a Hydra, two will grow in its place."

I have long thought of the myth of the Hydra as being representative of the complexities of the problems we often experience in life. Sometimes, it's not as simple as cutting off the head and waiting for the problem to die. Sometimes, we have to stand back and look at the big picture, see the monster for what it is (a big scary sumbitch) and gird our loins accordingly.

In the US, today, we are up to our collective asses in Hydras. We are surrounded by greed, poverty, ignorance, intolerance, injustice, malice and superstition. It often seems that if we gain a little victory over one issue, another two pop up in its place. We are frustrated, frightened and, too often, looking for someone to blame rather than trying to find progressive and effective solutions.

The US has created its own Hydra. It has scales of greenbacks, teeth of want, the anger of ignorance, and the poison of lies spews from its mulitple mouths. The head to be feared the most is that of ignorance. The blind acceptance of the words of the wealthy and powerful, the need to have others do our thinking for us and the assault on the human necessity of a good education has weakened us. People actually support those who would enact laws that are in direct violation of the these same voters' best interests.

I remember talking, years ago, to a woman who was sweet but not well educated. She was insisting that something was true that was not because she said she read it in the newspaper. I asked her what paper and she, triumphantly, showed me her copy of the National Enquirer. Ohhkaayyyy. This copy was stating that LBJ was behind labs that were experimenting on intergalactic aliens. I have finally realized that a biased and controlled media is also one of the heads of the Hydra. There are those who will believe that there IS a Bat Boy that was found, living in a cave and that Elvis was a secret agent and is living in Russia after faking his death. There are those that will believe the POTUS is a Kenyan Muslim and will never be shaken from that erroneous belief.

With gullibility of this nature, why not have a program on a so-called "educational" network about ancient aliens whose existence is postulated by pseudo-scientists with bad hair? Why not have Jerry Springer and Maury and Storage Wars and all the dumb stuff for dumb people that is aired on TV? Why not have religion trying to take over the law of the land? Hell, we rank and file Amurricans will believe anything.

I finally have arrived at the conclusion that we need to stab the Hydra in its heart. Our system needs renewing, renovating and a big cleaning job needs to be done in our Congress and various state legislations. We need to put new bricks in that wall between Church and State and reinforce it with rebar and concrete. Without this kind of action, the small minds and greedy hearts that are running the various shows will just multiply.

We can only do what we can do. We can speak out, stand up for the principals of equality and dignity and higher learning. We can vote, we can write, we can blog and we can, at least TRY to kill this monster that is taking us down. I have no idea of how successful we can be, but I do know that if we do nothing, then we deserve what we get. And that is the truth.

A Nice, Little Town

I live in Sanford, FL. It is a homogeneous community. We run the gamut from white to black and all colors in between. There is a lovely little downtown made up of mostly antique and art stores with some nice eateries. Sanford sits on the banks of the St. Johns River where it widens into Lake Monroe. For the most part, people tend to get along. But there are those who still carry the hate of racism bred by fear of anything or anyone different in their hearts. 

Recently, a young black man was shot and killed by a self-appointed vigilante. The 911 calls and the circumstances definitely lead to the conclusion that this death, which devastated a family, did NOT have to happen. Little Sanford was in the news for all the wrong reasons and so many of us who live here found ourselves angry that this happened and distressed for those touched by this terrible tragedy. Until this happened, very few people knew where Sanford is, who Trayvon Martin was and who George Zimmerman is.

I've not posted in a long time. I have found myself so overwhelmed by the injustices across the board in our nation, today, that it has been difficult for me to sort it all out. The shooting of Trayvon Martin has been one part of the insanity that seems to permeate our lives on every front. Political and social unrest are the norm and many of us are learning that things are not the way they taught us, in Government studies and American History, in school. I thought I had gone past my naivete', but I still had and still have a lot of eye-opening to do.

The inequities between the 1% and the 99% have never been more obvious. The fact is that there ARE people in this society whom those in power, the people able to make decisions and do things, believe are more entitled that others. That has long been obvious in the adoption industry. But now, there is no longer even a feeble attempt to conceal that sense of entitlement. If you are part of a certain race, a certain religion and a certain income level, then you are immediately considered among the elite. That sucks.

I wonder if we are seeing a backlash for daring to elect a Chief Executive who happens to be a man of color? Gee...Ya think? I remember being elated when the POTUS was elected. I thought that this was it...we, as a society, were finally maturing past the ignorance of the past. Boy, was I ever under a misapprehension.

The past year of campaigning has been an orgy of hate, lies and insanity and now there are people who remain uninformed or consider themselves above the fray who could contribute to the taking down of the real America. The acceptance of single motherhood may well be one of the casualties if this horrible thing were to come to pass.

So no, I have not abandoned the plight of Exiled Mothers and adopted people. I am dealing with the fact that my daughter and I are oil and water, right now. It is a conundrum that takes the breath out of me from time to time. I still stand for the right for Mothers AND their Adult Children to have access to OBC's and adoption records. I still stand fast against infant adoption that is, so often, terribly unnecessary. I still support Planned Parenthood, access to birth control and The Right To Choose. 

But I have seen that all of the previous paragraph is one page of the Book of The Decline Of America. We have a lot of work to do on many fronts. No one of us can do everything. Not all of our priorities are the same.

Right now, my attention is on the simple fact that for us to survive as a nation, we need to learn how to accept each other. We need to care about what happens to those who are hurt, needy and crying out for help. We need to be a community.

We need to be, on the inside, what Sanford seems to be on the outside.

Somebody Needs a Time Out

They say, "Don't feed the Trolls" and I, to a certain extent, agree. But I am sitting here, wondering what nerve I touched or if this is just general verbal garbage.

Our old friend "Anonymous"(Indian name is "Big Coward Afraid To Use Real Name") who seems to have problems with either sentence structure or English, left this gem in response to my "Shameful" post. When I get the really ridiculous, ignorant, totally off-the-wall comments, I love to shine the light of day on them.

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Shameful":
Won't you die already, old daughter of a bitch cunt. We do not care your
mother did not provide you with sufficient affection and love. Thankfully your
bigotry and views will be a thing of the past once your generation will
disappear."

So tell me, Anonymous; Was all the red licked off your candy, recently, or did someone urinate in your granola? It had to hit hard for you to call my mother names. Seeing as how she is deceased and beyond your gibes, the worst things you called me were "old" and "bigot." LOL...He/She don't know me vewwy well, do he/she?

Well, Trolls are gonna troll and they love to get a rise out of anyone. Have a good day, Anon. My friends and I have had a big laugh at your nastiness which is both clumsy and shows a gigantic lack of emotional control. Hope you got some bang for your buck. Happy trolling!

(Is it just me or is the world getting nastier?)

That Was Then...Look At Now

In 1962, ANY young woman who had even just one sex partner outside the bonds of holy deadlock was called a Slut, with impunity. And we had no recourse except to hold our heads up and try to survive. Some went into the closet and never came out again. Round heels, whores, "mattress-backs," tarts, hussies, easy and pushovers...those were just a few of the ways people referred to even the young woman who loved not wisely but too well. We were even held to blame if we were raped.

Once the Slut Bomb was thrown at you, it was hard to shed the title. In a small town where everyone knew everyone, it was nearly impossible. Girls were having sex that were either lucky or infertile. One woman I know who bragged of her virginity on her wedding day admitted to servicing her fiance manually until the big night.

The thing I find so absurd is that, had we had access to safe,

effective birth control in those days, we would have passed the marital finish line with reputation intact. Our fecundity was the curse that landed us in Slut-land. Back then, we just put up with the indignities that the cruel and Puritanical laid on us and tried to get on with living, as hard as that was. I was one that was determined to regain respectability by hook or crook. I don't think, in the eyes of my small community, that I ever did it. Once labeled, always labeled.

Now a young woman, a student, comes before Congress to plead the case for birth control for all and she gets slammed in the worst way with no evidence but that she advocates for the rights of all women to have access. The pompous and misanthropic Rush Limbaugh made crude observations and even cruder suggestions. And American women are up in arms and ready to do battle.

THIS is the kind of progress that has happened since I was a "teen-aged, unwed mother" in the early '60's. I, silly me, thought that the days of judging women by such stringent and unreasonable guidelines was over. But there is that small, LOUD, sex-obsessed group of theocrats, pundits and right-wing extremists who want to drag us all, kicking and screaming, back into the 19th century.

We, the products of our generation, had no real arena in which to protest the outrageous sexism of our day. Women struggled for one and got it and now they are geared up to use it. Women from all over the country and good, open-minded men, have written and called the sponsors of Limbaugh's show, carried on Clear Channel outlets, and he has apologized, weakly, twice. He is losing ad revenue for his sponsors and I see him fading away, just as Glenn Beck is doing. One woman answered his challenge in the New York Times.

I, for one, can't let this idiocy go unchallenged. The pudgy pundit is just one example of the unfair war against women..an attempt to "keep us in our place" by the powerfully insecure. We have GOP-heavy state legislatures churning out the anti-choice legislation as fast as they can but not doing a damn thing about the economy or jobs. We have a Klown Kollege Kampaign with Mittens McMoney, Ron "Stormfront" Paul, Newt "Philanderer" Gingrinch and the worst of the crazies, Sick Rantorum or "Frothy" (Google him).

What is worse is that there are other women who support this retrogression of our gender by force. They are the ones who blow me away. The pursed lips, bibles in hand and the box of tea bags usually gives them away. These prissy, asexual types would make good adoption agency social workers.....or nuns. I am sick of seeing hands slapped and voices stifled just because they are female. Oh, they allow the likes of Caribou Barbie, Coulter, Bat-Crazy Bachmann and others like them to have a say, but they speak as puppets of the Patriarchy or because they are simply nuts. As this gem from Patricia Heaton illustrates; "I really have great sympathy for Ms. Fluke and so in order to help her out I want to urge everyone to place at least one (unused) condom in an envelope and send to her at:Sandra Fluke C/OGeorgetown University Law Center600NewJersey Ave., NW,Washington,DC20001Maybe if enough of us respond she can make it through at least the next few months." For this atrocity in the LATimes, she offered a Limbaugh-Weak apology.

The GOP would not allow Sandra Fluke to testify in front of their panel yet entertained a full contingent of male clerics as "experts" on women's health. Sex-obsessed and using the fallacious sins of Eve to charge forth, these misogynists are forgetting one thing. Women are not like they were in the bad old days. We have a voice.

This upcoming election is important to the mothers of the BSE in more ways than one. We can erase that scarlet letter, once and for all, for us and our female progeny, by voting these dickless wonders out of office and refusing to remain silent. We have talked about our outrage at how we were treated in the past. How can we stand by and allow it to happen again?

We can speak up, now. They can throw names all they like, but we don't have to pick them up and wear them. They took our self-esteem, our autonomy and our babies and left us with ashes and they got away with it.

But that was then and this is now.

Shameful

My friend, Sandy, aka, Musing Mother, wrote a deeply moving and profound post, yesterday, entitled "Where's the Outrage?" Good question, Sandy. Damn good question.

I have such a deep, emotional investment in the need for justice for the mothers and adult children who were separated during the BSE, given no choice, no help, no right to even grieve our losses. This need has been an open wound and the actions of the Australian enquiry that is generating an apology (which is a good START) to the mothers of their BSE was like pouring alcohol into that wound.

I am so happy for the Mothers of the Australian BSE. I stand in awe of their determination and drive. I think of Di Welfare and her battle and hope, somehow, she knows that Lily Arthur and others carried on and are making inroads and that her struggle was worth it. Kudos, Ladies.

The pain comes from knowing that we, who are supposed to be the "modern" nation, are lagging behind, woefully, in progress.

Our victories have been small and the job ahead is momentous and in need of fewer factions and more cooperation. Like Sandy, I weep for the American mothers and adoptees. I weep because I see little to encourage me. I weep out of sheer envy that the Aussie Moms have a few reasonable people who listen in their government. I weep because we have become an elitist nation with no true democracy that would allow us to be taken seriously by the powerful.

I have become, as I grow older, increasingly ashamed of our government, our obsession with the bottom line and the Puritanical atmosphere that pervades the halls of our legislatures, courts and campaigns. We are NOT the leaders of the free world. We are dragging and lagging in so much and it is the attitudes that say business is more important than people and that we need to control with religion which has held us back.

I am reminded of an old TV commercial for a cigarette that had a jingle.."You've come a long way, Baby," as if having a 'feminine' smoke was a hallmark of our struggle as women. They played that commercial to death, yet the ERA failed by just a few states. Fear-mongering by the few and the loud brought it down. To me, that is just one of the indications of the sheer size of the struggle facing the Mothers and adoptees who want justice, open records and redress rather than the condescending kind of profit-based, token replies we have seen so far.

Cooperation, mutual support and understanding and respect between the different factions of this struggle in the USA could go a long way towards progress. I echo Sandy and other mothers who have carried seething outrage under our skins for decades. It's time to voice that outrage, to stop cutting off our noses to spite our faces, and stand together. If we don't, I know I will go to my grave, not ashamed of who I am, but ashamed of the nation of my birth.

The mothers in Australia have made this fight as much about them as it is about the adoptees. They have no problem with making their needs as important as those of their children. It's past time for us to do the same. We also have issues, pain and righteous anger over the way we were treated. We are Mothers who were not given the right to raise our own children over some kind of silly, religion-based, social mandate and we are pissed.

And there is no shame in that.

Strangest Bedfellows

I have been more political than adoption-oriented of late. And I went through a long, dry spell when I just couldn't, with all the other crap going on in the world, work up even a little bit of the old passion and fire. But Rick Santorum....yes, that's right...Rick Santorum, Old Frothy himself has geared me up for another go.

I will never understand mothers of loss who adopt. And you can bet your paycheck that, once they do, the adopter trumps the mother, everytime. I have a harder time with women who went through the injustice and indignities of the BSE who vote for the anti-choice candidates and are content with extremist, right-wing MEN making decisions about birth control.

HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?? If we ever, ever get a shot at justice, it is not going to be on the specious prayers of the rigid, Dominionist right. As far as they are concerned, we are still in the 19th century and we are still sluts. There is a cartoon showing what the inauguration of Frothy would be like and it showed all the women in burkhas. That is NOT far from the reality that this man espouses.

While Santorum pushed me over the edge, I have been getting nearer and nearer to that precipice as I watch the GOP members of Congress at work. Are they debating job programs. Have they introduced any legislative solutions to the economic crisis? Hell no! They are too concerned with what goes on in our bedrooms and reproductive organs to do something actually productive. They are trying a strategy of flogging us with ideology while dazzling us with sanctimonious bullshit.

With a group of asshats like that in power, justice and adoption reform of any kind are just a distant dream. Yeah, I know the pro-adoption bunch sit on both sides of the aisle but tell me the truth. Can't we have a better chance with elected officials that try to respect the rights of women in general or am I going daft in my dotage?

Those of us in my age group, the mothers of the BSE, know what it was like to have no autonomy, little say in our own fate or the fate of our infants and living our experience as the daughters of Eve...responsible for the lusty behavior of the male 50% of our dilemma. We remember when we were held responsible if we were raped. It was all on our shoulders.

So we were good girls and tried to be the best mothers we could be and were constantly told that the best mother we could be would be an "un-mother" and that our children would really be grateful. Guess what. Most of them didn't like it worth a damn!

I had thought that we had come a long way from that oppressive time. But if we don't use our memories and if we fall for the Pharisee that shouts "Lord! Lord!" the loudest, we are going to lose some precious ground. The government will be in our beds, our healthcare and our reproductive decisions and we will be back in the same old boat. Screw that! There have been too many broken hearts, too many tears, too many relationships that are forever bent out of recognizable shape by an unnatural separation. There have been too many families torn apart too many times by people who HAVE NO BUSINESS MESSING IN OUR BUSINESS!

These are the same people who cry out for smaller government yet want to micro-manage the lives of women. We have to send a strong message to these good old boys. We have to boot them out of the bedroom and vote them out of our wombs. Our marital status, our decisions about contraception and pregnancy, our sexual orientations are not what government is about.

Jobs, healthcare, education, infrastructure....all these are the things to which our national government and our state governments should be attending. Any mothers who are in league with the extremist Far Right are into extremely strange bedfellows or else they are just masochists who can't use the brains they were born with.

Excuse me if I refuse to lie down with control freaks who want to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body. There!

Time To Go...AHEAD

It is past time to kick the garbage out. It is past time to see the last of the Becks, Santorums, Gingrinches, Bachmanns, Palins and Limbaughs, the Boehners, Cantors and Mitchells. It is time to see the back end of the Kochs and Norquists and Fat Cat CEO's as they leave the halls of our governments to the people.

It's time to bid a happy farewell to superstition, to the pulpit-pounders, fear-mongers, papal fripperies, priestly foibles, funeral demonstrators and TV evangelical, power-hungry wannabes. It's time to open the door and push out all the flesh-peddlers posing as missionaries and agencies supposedly helping poor mothers, along with the planet-killers and abusers of all species, human and animal.

It's time to leave hellfire and brimstone behind and live the lives we were meant to live, with reason, and humane morality. It is time to build an extra thickness and height into that wall of separation between state and church. It is time to enact legislation based on reality and reason rather than the patriarchial prattle of stone-age herders.

It is time for men to leave the decisions about a woman's health and reproduction to the owner of her body...to HER. It is time to get the extreme conservatives and dirty-minded church deacons and pastors out of the wombs of the 52% of our population that claims them by the right of gender. It is time for all of them to get the Hell out of our bedrooms.

It is time to tell people, everywhere in this country, that you can be as biased as you like, but you better not act on it by denying equal treatment or enacting any of your knee-jerk eugenics on those who are different. It is time to render to our President the respect due his office and his intelligence and efforts.

It is time to banish poverty, out-of-reach healthcare, homelessness and injustice. It is time to allow people to protect their earnings and their ability to earn a living, to protect jobs and create more. It is time to stop throwing money into the military machine and start repairing our nation's infrastructure. It's time to begin increasing the quality and availability of a good education and lowering the burden for students and parents. It is time for compassion and common sense.

It is time to stop the rape and ruin of our Constitution and to welcome Lady Liberty and Lady Justice back into their rightful places, torch, blindfold and scales and all. It is time to stop being arrogant nationalists, snobbish isolationists and wavers of the flag and the cross. It is time to realize that our country is far from perfect...Hell, it isn't even close, and work on trying to fix it. It is time to take the money out of government and the bribes out of the lobbies of Congress.

It is time for each of us, no matter the age, gender, income, color or level of education, to have our say. We are the life's blood of the USA. Without us, there is no one for the power mongers to oppress, cheat or hurt. It is no longer just a matter of OUR rights but more a matter of WHAT'S right.

The harvest is down the road, but the seeds are being planted. We till our own rows, we talk the talk and walk the walk and then we reap. A long time ago, I learned that what is right is very simple, but never easy. It takes work. It takes courage. It takes wanting better for everyone..not just oneself. I don't have any quick answers except to keep talking, keep writing the people in government, sign and pass on petitions, pass out information and stay informed, yourself.

Don't depend on major media sound bites and a single newspaper. Dig deep, investigate, research and be willing to accept it if you have erred on the side or your own personal bias. Shoe leather isn't too bad with salt and a beer. Open your mind and learn.

It is said that a person with problems will only start to get better when they finally hit bottom. Well, I have watched for over 66 years as this beautiful land we live in has gone down a very slippery slope. Our technical achievements have far outstripped our social advances. I have learned the sad lesson that anyone, all the way up to Supreme Court Justices CAN BE BOUGHT!

Our puritanical attitudes are an international joke and the Ugly American is an international reality. It is a small world now. We have to live with other nations, and other races and we have to do it in a true spirit of cooperation. Again..simple but not easy.

I don't know why I wrote this blog today...I had been staying away from stress as much as possible. But this frustration, this grief as I mourn the death of human decency and kindness I see all around me, compelled me to make this plea.

Plant a seed, tend your row and don't let the assholes win!

November 30th..The Day of the Mothers

Today is National Strange and Mournful Day, an observance that began in response to the designation of November as National Adoption Awareness Month. We mothers wear our ribbons all month and tell anyone who asks what they mean. The last day of the month is an observance of the validity of our motherhood and the dreadful nature of our loss.


I came up with the name because certain lyrics from Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion" resonated, so deeply, with me. All through this past month, many Exiled Mothers have been wearing our ribbon badges of black for mourning, red for righteous indignation and passion for our cause and white for hope and healing. Some of us will adorn our ribbons with the birthstones of our children that were taken for adoption. I have a diamond and a pearl for my ribbon....April and June are the months in which I gave birth to, and was forced to surrender, my two oldest children.
While we refer to the lyrics of Simon's wonderful tune, this observance is not about reunion, but about the devastating effects of loss to adoption on the mother. I have high-lighted the pertinent lyrics in red and boldface.

MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION
music and lyrics by Paul Simon

No I would not give you false hope, On this strange and mournful day,
But the mother and child reu-nion, Is only a motion away,
Oh, little darling of mine, I can't for the life of me,
Remember a sadder day. I know they say let it be,
But it just don't work out that way. And the course of a lifetime runs,
Over and over again.



No I would not give you false hope,On this strange and mournful day,
But the mother and child reu-nion, Is only a motion away,
Oh, little darling of mine. I just cant believe it's so,
And though it seems strange to say, I've never been laid so low,
In such a mysterious way, And the course of a lifetime runs,
Over and over again.


But I would not give you false hope, On this strange and mournful day,
When the mother and child reu-nion,
Is only a motion away.


While most of the support groups online for Mothers of adoption loss tend to deal with the ups and downs of reunion (and God/dess knows, it is a rough ride), SMAAC is focused on the pain and injustice of our ordeal leading up to and including the "Strange and Mournful Day" when we realized our babies were lost to us.


So today, on the last day of what we now call "Adoption BEwareness Month," we honor ourselves and remember the injustice of the EMS/BSE and renew our determination to be an active and vocal part of bringing justice to the mothers.

And to my daughter and my son that were lost to me in those dark days, always know that I loved you and losing you was neither my choice nor my wish. Some day, some how, some one is going to have to make restitution for what was lost to us. Not in dollars, but in acknowledgement, atonement and public awareness of the pain and the dark underbelly of the adoption myth.


Happy Strange and Mournful Day, Sisters. I am so sorry you had to suffer this

loss.

*I wanted to add this post script to this repeat article. It is just in the last year that I have realized the full import of the loss of my children. I am and will always be their mother. But something twisted happened when they were raised by other people and it is my sad realization that my babies are gone forever. In their place, are people who share my DNA, but not my values or vision or cultural orientation, who look like me, but who don't really know me for who I truly am. Surrender is forever and adoption is the great destroyer of the person that might have been. My children are tied to mothers who never knew them on that deep, cellular level that is the natural connection and to whom they are unrealistically loyal, even after one of those mothers passed away. It doesn't hurt as much as it used to, but it still makes me angry.

Guest Post; Potent, Passionate and Political

My daughter, Kerry Henline Klein, sent me this message last night. She is without work and times are hard for her and her Significant Other. Being senior citizens on a fixed income,there is little we can do to help. She finally boiled over and this is the result.

Between Thanksgiving and now (not to mention everything else going on in my life) I have a lot to think about. Life these days is hard. It's not easy or fun making ends meet day to day for most folks, especially the older generation and those who do the jobs that most consider beneath them. But we do those jobs to live and help those who are retired and we want to make sure they can live the rest of their lives in reasonable comfort. Then there is making sure the children in our lives have food and an education...free education??? YEA RIGHT! Even a college education you work and pay for yourself doesn't mean you will be able to have a good life these days.

I do remember a day if you worked hard for a day's pay you got a fair day's pay. The last few years I worked for 911 I didn't even get a cost of living raise, yet I had to be there and was expected to neglect my life and family should a huge catastrophic event happen. 9/11 happened... the next few days at 911 dispatch were so quiet. So quiet it was scary. It seems that things have gone to hell from 9/11.

I'm tired of those with money making more money and thinking they are doing the 99% a favor by giving them a job that can't even pay a month's worth of bills. SCREW YOU! We need Kennedy and Clinton back in office together! Back when they were president even the homeless had a chance to get back on their feet! Republicans did nothing but screw what America is SUPPOSED to be at the behest of their corporate owners.

I rarely speak my mind on most political or religious issues, but I am sick and tired of being on the bottom of the pile in the 99%! I remember when Clinton was in office.... life was actually better for the "little" people. We are the BACK BONE OF AMERICA! And when the BACK BONE IS happy.... so should the "privileged" be.... but NOOOOO! They are too greedy and selfish and care NOTHING for their fellow HUMANS WHO MAKE SURE THEY HAVE WHAT THEY WANT...NOT NEED! We struggled to have a good Thanksgiving because of CORPORATE-OWNED REPUBLICANS AND CONSERVATIVES! To hell with all of you! I want my life back! All I want to do is earn an honest days wage and live a normal life.That was what America was about to begin with! Pardon me but... SCREW YOU REPUBLICANS AND 1%! I have rights too! And I'll be DAMNED if I won't take them back, even if I have to take them from YOU!

Start looking over your shoulder... you're about to have to live like a REAL American again.... try WORKING! I'm there and I will bring you down. If something catastrophic were to happen, you would be the 1st to go down.... I have a good chance of surviving.... screw you. 1%... you are screwing yourself by breaking the nation's backbone! That backbone will bite back and take what THEY MADE. You sure as hell didn't nor could you do the really hard stuff! You'd BEST think really hard or you will eventually regret it.

This, from one of the 99%, is a promise... not a threat...a promise. Sleep tight asshats, republicans and the just plain ignorant idiots born with a silver spoon. There will be a day of reckoning, and that silver spoon won't mean S***! And who will you depend on to survive???? Think about it dumbasses. I know I will... I doubt you will, if I have a say in it.

I need my teeth taken care of... I can't come up with the $3000 to have them pulled much less the money for my choppers! I need glasses... I can't pay the $500 bill to get an exam and a decent pair of glasses so I can see properly. I need to go to my DR for other health reasons too many to mention... I IGNORE THEM! If I end up with cancer.... guess what... I die in pain cause I have no insurance. Bet I won't even get a Tylenol to ease the pain as if it will do any good.

Because I actually will work instead of thinking my fellow humans are farm animals to be used, this is my future. Let the tables turn... I would LOVE to see the 1% hold their own! LOLOL!!!! Plant a field...harvest a field... YEAH RIGHT! Sweep a floor, wash your own clothes, grow your own food, prepare your own meals, take care of a medical issue with a little common sense. The 1% could NOT survive without the 99%! Watch out the 1%.... you are going to be in for a RUDE awakening soon! We will NOT allow you to run us down or treat us as slave labor. Our founding Fathers would be sooooo ashamed of you! America is supposed to be a chance for one and all.... you're trying make it a Hitler-type fascist state!

Just wait until you have no one to wipe your ass when you're sick, or cook your food or feed you or grow/buy your food.... you get the drift. Try hemming and mending your own clothes...I dare you. Yes... I'M F****** PISSED AND HAVE HAD ENOUGH! I'm tired of not being able to do simple things that the 1% toss around like candy. Oh... GAS IN MY CAR! FOOD ON MY TABLE! FIX MY CAR! GO TO THE DR! A NEEDED NEW PAIR OF SHOES, A BADLY NEEDED NEW BRA! Need I go on???? I've had it... the gloves are off.

My daughter is proud and has always worked for what she needed. She just wants a chance to work and make the money she needs to live. This is not what I envisioned for my children. I understand your anger, Pooh. I am angry, too and my heart hurts for you. I love you.

INCOMING!!

Ah, it is that time again. As we approach the end of November and the Strange and Mournful aspect of our observation of this heinous month of adoption idolatry, another adopter/facilitator/good adoptee searches for, and finds, my old post about what anti-adoption really means.

"GB's Mom" is the latest of the irate, pro-adoption souls to lob the "bitter bomb" at me without even knowing me. GB, in answer to your "comment," you go ahead and stay in your world, as you put it, and I am sorry you are so willfully clueless.

Here is said comment and you should be honored that I gave it this much attention: "GB's Mom has left a new comment on your post "What Anti-Adoption Means": I am sorry you are so bitter. You stay in your world, I will stay in mine." Well, Hell. That sounds like a deal!

Sometimes I see, in these frustrated adoption defenders, the 6-year-old, arguing with classmates and holding on to the myth of Santa Clause for dear life. A glimpse of the true pain that comes with this unnatural separation is too much for some to take. They hold on to the Industry mythology like a life ring in a sea of turbulent truth. The only defense they have is to call us "bitter." AND each one that does so thinks that they are the original with that assessment and are so proud of their bon mot. I tend to get the giggles, now, when I see that "bitter" bomb flying through the air only to be a dud when it lands.

It would be right to call us angry. We have a right to that anger. We were screwed by more than the fathers of our babies. We were placed into the maw of a beast...the social service and adoption industry...and left to sink into compliance by coercion. Not a great way to spend a big chunk of your younger years, I might add. And not a single person has stepped up to acknowledge the injustice that was done to us and to our infants. But we are also survivors who love, laugh and live. This battle is a PART of our lives. It is not the sum total of our lives.

GB's (Can I call you GB's?), don't confuse righteous anger and a desire for justice and change with bitterness. Of course, if you follow that advice, you might learn something you don't want to know. Meanwhile, I have a life, with husband, children, doggies, family and friends whom I love and who love me. I guess they like the taste of "bitter." We're riding out to the coast, today. Excuse me while I go enjoy my bitter life. (That's sarcasm, I say, that's sarcasm, kid!) *giggle

I JUST HAD TO ADD THIS ONE: Someone commented;"Anonymous (of course) has left a new comment on your post "INCOMING!!":

@1:30 Anon: I don't know about her older kids, but I don't think she "purchased her babies from a baby broker." The younger child is from a disrupted adoption. The older child has FASD, among other medical issues. Perhaps the mother that chose to drink excessively during pregnancy wasn't fit to parent?

I understand your pain, I really do, but I don't think she is representative of people that buy babies. I don't think she is the face of your anger. If anything, she is doing a service, taking in (dare I say "unwanted?") children with special needs. I am sure you two can find much to disagree about, but I don't think she should be the object of your scorn for parenting these children.

To which I must say; That's all well and good. But GB'sMom CAME HERE FIRST, with the 'bitter bomb' insult. She got what she deserved. It seems that it is OK for adopters to make any nasty judgment of mothers and those of us who really "felt the pain," but nothing should be said in return? I think not, Anonymous. And, what effort was really made to help any of the families of said children? Do you know anything beyond what she and the social workers have said? If you don't think she should receive any criticism, then you might want to advise her against making such comment about people she doesn't know. RKW

Lisi...I didn't troll GBM's blog. Anyone can reference any open URL on the 'net. As far as I am concerned, this didn't start with me but it ends HERE. On to other things. RKW

Headaches and Heartaches

I have been sadly remiss in posting, this past month. Between health issues, concerns for family members and the national angst we are all experiencing, the issues of adoption just seemed to take a big, back seat with me. I have had to deal with headaches and heartaches of the personal variety. Adoption is still not numero uno on my agenda, but November has reared its ugly head and National Adoption Awareness Month is upon us. I gag as I type.

My friend, Musing Mother, posted a very relevant and insightful piece on the plight of Mothers from our era. La Dia de los Madres is a take on the Mexican Day of the Dead and that is how I and many others felt after our journey through the surrender of our infants to the adoption machine, back in the day.

I can't help but link those feeling to the feelings many are beginning to experience just being middle-class and poor Americans. We have awakened to the fact that we have taken much for granted and while we were doing so, the greed machine was working overtime. Now, substitute your flesh and blood, the child you carried inside you for nine months, for that lost job, home, income and self-esteem, and you get the picture.

I have my "I am the 99%" button, but I will also be wearing it next to my "Strange and Mournful" ribbon (pictured). I am unable to camp out in downtown Orlando, but I have spent some time there with the local "Occupy Group." I hope there are those who will ask me about my ribbon when I return to wave a sign for a couple of hours. I have some good analogies to use for their edification.

I have always loved November. The promise of approaching winter, the smell of dry leaves on the ground, Thanksgiving with feasting and family...all have special significance for me. But along came this co-opting of one of my favorite months by the adoption machine, adherents and fans and they are doing their best to ruin this month. Well, I won't let them!

November will always be those things I love, PLUS, it will also still be "National Adoption Bewareness Month." Let the one-percenters who reap the bloody booty of the adoption industry put that one in their turkey and stuff it! If there ever was an example of the misuse and abuse of capitalism, adoption, the traffic in human children is it. The nation of the bottom line has brought us to a new low, but it was well on its way in the Era of Mass Surrenders (EMS and/or BSE) .

Let's hope the turn of events on a national level will allow for open minds on this issue for a change. The brainwashing the public has received that allowed this financial fiasco is no different from the mythology they have been force-fed about adoption. Just like Wall Street, Citizens United, The Tea Party and the Dominionists, Big Adoption is just about as harmless and benign as a nest of angry rattlesnakes. And, as many recent news stories from both here and abroad have proven, this Industry is just as corrupt as the rest.

Corrupt, greedy, entitlements for the self-entitled, all these apply. But I will not let this entity take my November from me. I think I will make a new sign to wave. How about, "Screwed by Big Adoption?" Meanwhile, in the vernacular of my generation, I will continue to groove on MY November.

What's Really Important?

I have had little to nothing to say about THE issue of adoption in the past few posts. It is hard for some mothers and adoptees to understand, but, at this point, adoption is the last thing on my mind. Like millions of others, I am holding on to my last shred of hope that we will survive this unrest, corruption and intrusion into our government by greed and religion. I know it has been happening for a while, now, but I was one of those who really believed it would never get this far.

One thing I do know is that there is little to no hope for adoption "reform" and uniform open records if we get a president out of the current batch of Republican wannabes. Even the undeclared GOP candidates make me shudder when I think of them taking the reins of the executive branch. The Congress is a playground for a bunch of greedy children and the future of our nation as the great country it was is in doubt.

Funny how pet causes and personal interest causes can take a back seat when basic survival becomes an issue. People had criticized the "Occupy" movement, saying it is unfocused and unorganized. I have read the mission statement from the Occupy Wall Street organization and it is very coherent and inclusive. A visit to the Facebook Page and to the links provided will give anyone with questions a lot of good information. This and the upcoming election are the issues that now consume me.

It is imperative to me that we keep corporate greed and ANY religion out of our government. I watched the first part of the PBS documentary on Prohibition last night and the folly of trying to legislate religious morality by altering the constitution or making such laws was made clear. Before anyone tries to point out the Civil Rights act, let me stress that there is a difference between making bigotry illegal, an impossible task, and making laws giving all people a right to a decent life. That is what is ethical, not what is dogmatically moral.

The lack of ethics in the financial community and Congress got us into this mess WITH OUR PERMISSION. You say you didn't give your permission? Well, every time we don't vote, or we don't take the time to educate ourselves about a candidate or issue or we depend on sound bites and whatever someone else says to make a political decision, we are handing the government over to these entities.

Now, a lot of good people, who are deeply into their religion, are giving knee-jerk approval to the Dominionists who are hand in glove with the Corporations in wanting to make the government theirs. Our way of life is not all that is at stake. Our most precious and personal rights are in danger of being destroyed by those who would re-fashion the Constitution to suit them.

For a long time, I thought that the populace was too smart to let these theocrats and fat cats pull one over on them. But the rise (and the slow fall) of the Tea Party has persuaded me that I have given many of my fellow Americans too much credit in the common sense department. The main stream media now relates to its audience on about an eighth-grade level. No longer champions of the truth, the media has bowed to its corporate ownership and watered down its message. Education and penal institutions are in the process of being privatized. The dumbing down of America is almost complete.

I don't want this to be the kind of world left to my four great-grandchildren. I am sick of watching my children, who should have been able to do better with their lives than their parents, struggling to hold on along with millions of other. And I am tired of hearing obnoxious media pundits, both religious and political, spouting ignorance and nonsense for the consumption of those who don't want to use the good brain with which Nature endowed them.

What is really important is that we save our nation from the Big Corporate and Theological Brothers and ourselves from a slide into ignorance. It's a simple matter of survival.

They're There! Where's The Media?

Last Saturday, 2000 people occupied and marched on Wall Street. They have camped out in a park. They are standing up and speaking out for the majority of us who can't be there. This is no longer "life as usual" people. Yet, there was no coverage on any of the major news programs.

We need to complain to the mainstream media. They will cover the nasty little Westboro Baptist bunch, sometimes numbering less than 15 people when they spew their homophobic hatred at the funerals of our service people. But 2000 people, assembling peacefully to see that the truth is heard..they are suspiciously silent. Is this coming from the top where media moguls are wanting these folks to go away, unheard?

This is a movement that is spreading, a movement that doesn't have the deep pockets of corporate mercenaries behind it. It is you and me and young people who can't find jobs and the elderly who are watching their hopes for a dignified retirement drift away. I worry about where all this is headed, but I admire and support them for their efforts.

We are living in a time when, in the name of greed and dogma, people are willing to see our government and our nation go down for the count. We are seeing, to our shame, the man holding the most important position in the free world being treated with disrespect and hostility. And yet he remains a gentleman.

For those whose attention is still solely on adoption issues, let me add my opinion here, for what it is worth. If one of the GOP candidates is nominated and elected, the chances for real reform, open records and the rights of single mothers will go down the tubes. You might as well kiss that goodbye, especially if one of the Tea Party Darlings is elected.

Three years ago, I was elated and joyful that our nation seemed to have overcome racism to the point that we would elect a well-qualified man of mixed race to the Presidency. Now I realize that there were a lot of good old boys and girls who didn't think it would happen and the hatred boiled to the surface. Now I am fearful, for the President, for our nation, for my family, my loved ones and my friends. Something nasty is happening.

The hatred of the teabaggers is a festering boil on the face of the USA. If we seemed ugly to the outside world before, just combine corporate interests with the racism and adamant fundamentalism of the baggers and you have the end of freedom, the Constitution, and life as we know it and our downfall will be very public and very disgraceful. Poverty and hunger will make rebels of many, and corpses of more.

Doomsday scenarios are not easy to take, and I am not saying that the world will end, but it will definitely change, for the worse, if the Republican/Tea Party/ALEC Power Brokers get their way. We can only stop this from happening by making a lot of very public noise and making enough of it that we can't be ignored. The people occupying Wall Street need our support. So here are a few email addresses and phone numbers through which the national media can be contacted. This is just the TV news departments. You can also easily Google the big-name newspapers and they have email addresses to send letters to the editors.

ABC News: netaudr@abc.com

CBS News: Phone: 212-975-4321

CNBC: info@cnbc.com

CNN:cnn.feedback@cnn.com

MSNBC: world@msnbc.com

NBC: 212-664-4444

PBS/Newshour With Jim Leherer: newshour@pbs.org

Let's get these reporters out there covering this story. I don't want to see these people leave, dejected and feeling they have failed us. Help them.

Dear Republicans

Dear Republicans,

I'm not sure, but I hope I am writing this to a group of real people. You see, I probably am a naive idealist, but I have to think that there has to be a way to get the realities of life across to you. I am a senior citizen. Yet, I still have hope that there is compassion and decency in the vast majority of human beings.

I know you don't want there to be a Democratic president. I fear you REALLY don't want a mixed-race, Democratic president more than anything. But is it fair for you to engineer an economic disaster that will take us all down, except for those of you who are wealthy, just to try to destroy one man? And why do you seem to think that none of us see what is happening and why? I feel, somehow, disrespected as a person, a woman and a senior by the tactics you are using. I am neither blind, brainwashed or ignorant.

In my lifetime, I have seen statesmanship left behind and replaced with political idealogues, I have seen the incremental destruction of everything socially and politically good that came out of the first 70 years of the last century. There are babies out there, on the ground, crying because they have been thrown out with the bathwater. I have seen the decline of truth and the rise of the spin doctor. I have seen a nation grown so lazy that they depend on media sound bites rather than researching the candidates before voting. I have seen an educational system so crippled that it is turning out functional illiterates.

I started out as an activist in the area of adoption, specifically, coerced surrenders of the Era of Mass Surrenders. I always looked in wonder at the attitude of adopters or PAPs who felt they were entitled to the child of another woman, just because they wanted one. Now I see where they get it. Most of you are attorneys that have been elected to Congress and I have never seen such a bunch of self-entitled people in my life, except, perhaps, the corporations and financial fat cats and hedge funders that line your pockets.

Yet you call the pittance that we have worked for and paid into all our working lives an "entitlement?" I call Social Security a promise and a deal. I call Medicare necessary and paid for with OUR money. And I call social programs that help feed, house and educate the less fortunate among us, especially children, COMPASSION.

Capitalism, on its own, is a ravenous beast that consumes and acquires with no thought of consequences. Without social programs to balance things out, our system becomes even more corrupt and ugly than it already is. We WILL fight for the social conscience that keeps our nation from becoming a complete corporate-owned plutocracy and theocracy.

And yes, while we are at it, what IS IT with this evangelical overload? Not only have many of your number thrown the Constitution to the ground, but with this aspect, you tread all over it with mud on your shoes. America is a nation of multiple beliefs and non-beliefs and it should remain that way. I don't think "freedom of religion" means just freedom for one segment of believers.

President Obama has offered the olive branch more than once and you have hurled it back in his face. Oh you good Christians, you. He has offered programs to help our nation and you look, not at the merits of the program (similar to many passed in bipartisan actions over the years) but at the source of that program and you sneer and reject. We want that program. We need it. But you are in that "my way or the highway" groove.

I know a lot of self-proclaimed Republicans that seem to be decent people and they are looking somewhat embarrassed, these days. They still puff up and flash their "Nobama" buttons, but they are wondering what happened to their 401Ks and retirement as well. And they are not real keen on Social Security cuts or Medicare cutbacks. You're walking a slippery slope with those subjects.

You want us to blame President Obama for his predecessor's excesses and your stubborn pique and that's not representing the people. That is a vendetta and not a pretty one. Maybe you need to step back and remember that you, whether you are well to do or not, are just one of the herd and that the strength of the working class makes or breaks any nation.

Of course, I look at the picture of the current GOP candidates and find myself, an agnostic, praying that none of these people defeat the President next year. That would probably put an end to my American citizenship. I have lost trust in you and in your motivations. So hope you don't win 2012 or you will have a nasty situation on your hands. Hungry, desperate people can get angry and determined.

I'll just get out if I can, should that happen. I'm too old for your nonsense. Here's some truth for you.

Sincerely,

Robin Kinney Westbrook

Legacy of Greed and Arrogance

9/11 has left us with a curious and terrifying legacy; asshats, motherf***ers, and bullsh***ers as far as the eye can see, bad things happening to good people, bad people getting all the dough and all the power, and good people watching their homes burn or washed away in a flood and people in Africa starving while a bunch of pin-headed, self-righteous redneck, evangelical elitists and greedy power-mongers glad-hand, campaign and make back-room deals.

These influence brokers used the fear generated by the cowardly attacks of 9/11, ten years ago, to erode our freedoms and break the back of our government. Bin Laden got what he wanted.

Racist bullies, liars and hypocrites sit in their snug little ivory towers and rain down hate rhetoric. Inane/insane pundits burst our eardrums with their messages of hate....This goes beyond party and philosophy and into the heart of the human race where it is festering and about to blow. They wanted to use fear to control the populace. Well, good job, Sh**eaters! I am definitely afraid. But controlled? Not yet.

I fear a return to the dark ages, an elite class that celebrates the ignorance and fear of the masses while they control access to everything that makes life better...education, creativity, art, music, freedom. I fear a time when the public becomes nothing more than voiceless drones. I fear a bloody rebellion, a destruction of something so precious, lost because it was taken for granted.

I see the seething anger and/or the exhausted resignation of the millions who just want to work for a living. I see a wife entering a church to ask for food. I see a man gathering scrap metal so that he can sell it to buy gas to look for work. I see elderly people wondering if they will die in poverty.

And I see a large dark cloud harboring a hideous, tentacled, Lovecraftian monster with many faces; Koch, Murdoch, Bush, Perry, Beck, Coulter, Rove, Cheney, Palin, Bachmann, Robertson, Cain, Paul, Devos, Exxon Mobile and tar sand blasters, pipeline runners and mountain cappers...not enough room to list all of the dastards.

I see book-burning, church-run "education" and emotions, especially love in any form, outlawed and punishable by law. Orwell just had the year wrong. Atwood is a visionary as well. History and literature have warned us but we haven't heeded the warnings and are beginning to pay the price. "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Ten years ago, we saw the results of hate and religious fanaticism. It cost the lives of thousands of innocent people and left a scar on the face of our nation. I find it absolutely flabbergasting that the parallels are not recognized in the antics of Robertson, the Tea Party and praying candidates who fall to their knees while their states burn. Fascism isn't socialism, People!! It's intolerance and fear and iron control and fanaticism and it isn't just Islam that has a claim to those attributes. It is here in the fundamentalist, evangelical, end-of-timers Christian Dominionists and we should fear them just as much as the Arab piloting an airliner. There is an ACTIVE campaign to replace Democracy with control through fear, and to replace the Constitution with the bible. And YES, that would be a bad thing!!!

My time is coming soon, when I won't have to worry about it. I am in my "golden years" (*snort) and the worse will probably come after I am dead and gone. But I have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and a legacy of ignorance, fear and poverty is not what I would want for them.

For every time I didn't speak up, for the times when I was younger when I was too self-involved and reacted rather than researched, for all the votes I didn't cast because I was too "busy," I am so sorry, my Dear Ones. As long as I still have breath in me, I will protest and write letters and keep the DC switchboards buzzing. I will support that which speaks to the rights of all and fight that which gives the best to a few.

I just hope we aren't too few, too late.

Distilling Knowledge

Kerry and Sam...1990

When I first reunited with my surrendered daughter and then my son, I knew that I was entering a strange land. All the maternal feelings were there, but there were kinks in the chain. Little did I understand at the time, or for years, how that gap in years, and missing out on sharing their childhoods would dash any expectations of a normal relationship and cause a lot of hurt and frustration.

I can see jealousy in my surrendered children, towards their siblings...not hostile but wistful that my raised children have something with me that they don't. It speaks to the importance of shared experience.

You see, my raised children, Kerry and Sam, were my babies, then my toddlers, then my little girl and little boy, then my rebellious teens before they became my adult children. I can recall, with them, special moments, traumas and happy times. My surrendered children were my babies and then they were gone. All the in-between was lost and I admit to searching, hungrily, in their faces for the children they were rather than the adults they now are. That was MY bad.

In 1993, I was hit by a storm of emotion and confusion, with two reunions in one year, just as I was going though a very tough time in my marriage. It took me a long time to accept and mourn the fact that what I had lost would never be returned. Those precious formative years belonged to someone else. And to say I was displeased with what took place with my babies during those years would be an understatement.

I tend to over-analyze a lot. And often, I have to stand back and quit going around my arse to get to my elbow. Accepting what I can't change has always been a challenge for me, but I find myself in a much better state of mind when I do that very thing.

Yes, I am the Mother of the two children lost to adoption...their true Mother. But they are not, nor will they ever be my little girl and little boy. Those years will always belong to someone else.

My daughter's adopters are deceased, but they are still a living presence in her. She often posts tributes to them on her FB page. Now that is not the norm for children raised by their natural parents, but what the hey...whatever floats her boat. I just cannot read those paeans without feeling a bit of a knife in my gut. I have to wonder if that is why she does it.

I feel the family connection more keenly through my granddaughter and her children. I wasn't there when she was a baby, but then lots of grandparents weren't. Our relationship is easier, laughter comes to us more readily and we don't try to burden each other with our troubles. And she gave me a gift when we visited while I was in San Antonio....the gift of her truth and the verification of a lot of my suppositions. The weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders.

Now I know that in any dysfunctional family, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. But this is the first time I have really listened to my granddaughter and heard her pain and frustration. Once I had boiled down all this information to the inner essence, I knew that I had to distance myself from a toxic relationship. I would do no one any good by enabling them.

So here I sit, on Labor Day, having been greeted by my raised children and my granddaughter, and getting on with the bigger fish I have to fry. We have to figure out how to make our move to WV, on hold for four years, now, due to a badly damaged economy and corrupt, political shenanigans. We also have to re-work our budget, deal with the expenses we have without incurring any more and make sure we are covered, health-wise. One of my raised children is going through a terrible time and needs a strong shoulder on which to cry. Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Da and all that.

And even that pales when I remember riding through the countryside of Texas, to the west of San Antonio, and seeing the devastation of drought and heat that is ruining the livelihood of millions. I watch the news when I feel especially brave and I have to do what little I can to aid in preventing our Nation from going completely down the tubes greased by greed and arrogance. I can write, I can vote and I can talk. Like I said..bigger fish to fry.

And as the song says, "You got your troubles, I got mine." My little girl and little boy were taken from me and I have accepted that. And maybe that tragedy will be a learning tool for someone else and a preventative from falling into the same trap. Instead, I am concentrating on what I do have, and I am one fortunate woman. I need to remind myself of that on a continuing basis.

Sometimes, you just have to boil it all down to the basics, distill your knowledge and go with the essence. Simple, but not easy...but then the simplest truths are never easy to take.

Life Is.......

When I was small, my first memories are of being held, coddled and played with by my parents and my relatives and I thought, "Life is warm and caring."

When my father left us in my fifth year, and I watched my mother cry, I thought, "Life is scary and troubling."

When I suffered a severe burn on my hand as a child, I thought, "Life is physical pain."

When I would play with my toys or my sisters and friends, I thought, "Life is fun."

In school, I thought, "Life is working and learning."

When I approached and reached puberty, I thought, "Life is confusing and full of strange feelings and thoughts."

When I became interested in boys and had my first serious boyfriend, I thought, "Life is being in love."

When I was a single, pregnant teen, sent away by my family, abandoned by my lover, alone, frightened and told I was unfit to raise my own baby, I thought, "Life is about debasement, loss and shame."

Each time I gave birth and felt that wonderful feeling when I held my child, I thought, "Life is about fleeting moments of joy."

When I met, married and lived, day to day, with my wonderful husband, I thought, "Life is mature, comfortable yet still exciting love."

As I struggled on, as we all must, through all the different highs and lows of life, I learned that life is all of that and more...joy, grief, peace, worry, fun, fear, loss, serendipity and epiphanies. Some manage life better than others. Some can't deal with it at all and decided to opt out. Others in my life have shown me the meaning of courage, self-honesty and, as my late aunt put it, "keeping on, keeping on." My husband honors his lost child by making his life the best one he can make.

But the most important thing is that I think life is worth living. In all its joys and sorrows, it is a miracle created by the Universe and something which each person makes as good as they want it to be despite the pitfalls.

But that good life can only be made in the environment of true freedom, where with rights come responsibilities to each other and our world and where each person is free from ANY kind of oppression, be it physical, financial or spiritual. We must be free from the dogma of the self-righteous. We must be free from ignorance, want and hunger. We must be free to learn, to explore and to be enriched by art, science, literature and music.

That is why we must not let the direction that is being taken by the extremist Right determine our future. We must say NO to fascism in the name of religion and NO to corporate person-hood and the idea of alms to the rich. I don't know about any of you, but none of my family, friends and associates are named Exxon Mobile. We must continue to say NO to racism and the encroaching idea of a Christian theocracy. This country was founded by people who felt strongly that the Church and the State should always be separated by law and logic.

So, to counter this, we must say YES to progress, YES to equality, YES to compassion, and YES to all Americans sharing the load.

When we do that, we are saying YES to a life worth living for ourselves and the generations to come.

Footnote* A friend posted this quote and I thought it appropriate to the news of the day;"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." — Aristotle

Send 'Em In

The GOP candidates arrive for another debate! It's Tea Party Time!!

I never thought I would see the day that a group of candidates for the highest office in our nation would deliberately tell whoppers, misinform voters and generally show their racist bias in such an overt manner. I know that there have been lies told by politicians from day one in this nation and others. But to do it in such an in-your-face manner is criminal. The fact that there are those who buy into these lies is just plain sad.

For years, the lies about adoption persisted. The fact that the truth is coming from those of us who experienced the mistreatment, grief and shame makes no difference to the spin doctors. We just get dismissed as bitter and angry.

Now, we are being lied to about everything we know to be true and they just don't care. Faux news will make things up as they go. The GOP candidates try to rewrite history. They don't know as much as a 6th-grader knew about history and civics in my day.

We are approaching an Idiocracy and, if you don't believe me, go visit the "Birthmom Buds" on Facebook, listen to a speech by Mispeak Bachmann or try to argue with an avid "birther" about the fact that the President WAS born in the US. Willful ignorance is going to take this nation down if we don't stand up, not just for the rights of individuals as put forth by the Constitution, but for TRUTH.

I can see the drive for open records being detoured by the Corporate Congress and the state leggies who have had their palms greased. I can see no chance, at all, for the "sinful, sexual" Mothers to even ask for, much less receive the justice they deserve. How can we when we still have idiots who use the old "no one held a gun to your head" and "you're the one who spread your legs" arguments and think them valid?

We are no longer trudging up a long hill. We are climbing Everest with no equipment except the frail rope of truth. Like everything else in this corporate culture, truth has become a commodity and can be anything anyone wants it to be if they have the money and the connections. We have entered the Twilight Zone of American politics. Statesmen have been replaced by celebrities and proselytizers. There is NO government of, by and for the people. It has become the playground of the Kochs and the Murdocks and the DeVoes and their ilk.

It is a truly bizarre circus and the clowns are truly scary. But we must have clowns, so send 'em in. Oh. Don't bother. THEY'RE HEEEEEER.