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.

Wheel's Turnin' Round and Round

Have you ever crawled into bed at night, so tired and sleepy that you can't wait to hit the pillow only to lie there, wide awake, while your brain goes into overdrive? I had one of those nights not too long ago. It seems that the more I tried to stifle the inept problem-solver between my ears, the harder the wheels turn.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon. My hubby is the world's worst at being unable to sleep in. Once he wakes up, no matter how early, his active brain won't let him go back to sleep. That is why I find him asleep in his recliner so often. All those thing he felt MUST be done, that wouldn't let him stay in bed, don't get done. It's a vicious cycle.

But I digress. I started thinking of all the things that I had discovered about surrender, society, adoption, reunion, closed records and the memories of my time in the Unwed Mother Hot Seat. I started playing "what if" and imagining what I would have done differently and how. I flashed back to April 30, 1993 and my first reunion (I had two that year...WHEW!) and what I might have done and said had I known then what I know now.

I remember that contentious phone conversation with the woman who adopted my daughter and I went through a litany of other things I might have said. When she told me to "cease" the "nonsense" of reunion, I just replied that I was leaving that up to my daughter. I came up with quite a few much better responses 18 years too late.

One of them was a keeper, though. It was a point we Mothers have discussed among ourselves on many occasions. Say it takes 18 to 22 years to raise a child to productive adulthood. Once our children have reached that point, they become responsible, in every way, if we did a decent job, for themselves. But, even though my daughter was in her 30's at the time of reunion, divorced with two children she was raising, the woman who adopted her still seemed to think of her as a possession...an eternal child. I wish I had said, "She belongs to neither of us. She is her own person, an adult. We have no control over what she needs, wants or does. Live with it!"

If we do our jobs well, and forge bonds of love with the children we raise, then there will be a relationship after they have left the nest. But their decisions, their relationships and their lives are their own. No one "owns" them but themselves. It is a natural part of life that children grow and go, form partnerships and start their own cycle. It is natural but it seems that, in adoption, there is an "eternal child" clause. Someone once likened it to slavery and it does have its likenesses.

There are many Mothers who have had an adopter tell her that she was their worst nightmare. That is the insecurity that goes with adopting. The one thing that the courts of this land cannot create with their almighty decrees, contracts, agreements and judicial signatures is that blood bond. That has to be what the adopters can't face. The fear of losing the child they raised to the Mother who bore that child tends to interfere with a fully healthy relationship. If they have done their job well, then that shouldn't be a problem. And it wasn't for my daughter. Her love for those she calls her parents never wavered. But their fear still invaded what could have been a wonderful reunion.

I understand the fear, but I don't condone holding an adult hostage to it. My daughter was threatened with having herself and her children cut out of the will. What should have been parental love became conditional. I felt sad for all of us. While I respect my daughter's feeling where the people who raised her are concerned, I found that I had little feeling for them one way or the other once I worked through the anger. It wasn't about them...reunion was about US.

All that should be a moot point by now, since both of them passed away within a couple of years of each other a few years back. I have neither resentment nor any other feelings for them. They were not and are not a part of my life.

Yet, in my daughter's life, their ghosts loom large. Though several years have passed, she can tell you the exact date of their death without having to refer to any paperwork. She still mourns and I wonder if it is them or the idea of the dream of the "ideal" life and family she had that she mourns.

My mother passed away 43 years ago. The only reason that I can remember the date is because she died at Christmas. I can't tell you the date of my father's death. I remember them on Mother's Day and Father's Day and sometimes will have a memory that makes me smile. I miss them but know that this is the cycle of life. I do NOT post paeans of praise and love to them on the anniversary of their deaths, nor have I held my grief to me like Linus held his blanket. Grief is a process with a beginning and an end and reaching acceptance and peace is the goal.

That's when I realized what was keeping me awake. I was trying to free my daughter with my mind. No can do! The only one who can release her into a full and happy life is HER. I can toss, turn, suggest, obsess and you name it and it won't do a lick of good. I needed to let go and let IT go. "What if" is a dangerous game to play when you need sleep.

I finally nodded off and slept late the next morning...if you call 8:00 AM, sleeping late. The problem was solved by my recognition of the fact that I can't solve the problem. I had a chuckle at my own expense, talked about it with my friend, and, for the most part, am letting it lie. I took a mental health day, yesterday. I didn't watch a minute of news, chatted a bit online with some friends of like mind, and took an afternoon nap with hubby and pooches.

It felt so good, I just might do it more often. And I slept so well, last night.

Another Day, Another Clarification

I wonder how many who read my blog on angst, drama and terminal uniqueness realized that it is about BOTH the mother AND the adoptee? I got some good comments and then I got some that, though complimentary in nature, showed that some didn't get it at all. Here is some clarification.

I did not say that what happened to mothers and adoptees was GOOD...just that it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to anyone in this nasty world. Mothers deserve acknowledgement and redress for the injustice and adoptees deserve the right to know their heritage. THAT hasn't changed. What I was addressing was this breast-beating anguish over something that can't be changed and that isn't as horrible as some of the tragedy that could be visited upon a person. I am a big fan of the idea that you shouldn't keep carping about something when you could be out there doing something about it.

The other thing I was trying to say is that NO infant has a choice about anything. Vlad Tsepes (Dracula) had kids. Would you choose him for a daddy? We BSE moms, and many of the moms that came after, were victims of an industry that had us believing we were giving our babies a wonderful gift of "better" parents. We REMEMBER being impaled by the sharp stake of loss. (How's that for dramatic?) A good friend of mine says that every drama should have a statute of limitations. After a certain period of time, it is old news and over. While surrender and adoption are not quite in that category, the anguish, tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth over it is no longer appropriate for most of us.

The name calling and thumb-sucking just gets to me. I had two children that were taken for adoption. ONLY THOSE TWO are any responsibility of mine. I am not the bad mommies of other adoptees. I do not owe you a thing because I did not have a thing to do with where you were or are. It is NOT all about the adoptee just like it is not all about the mother. Both parties have feelings and issues that are EQUALLY important. I have found that "un-friending" is a good way to preserve my serenity.

And both parties have a right to work through it and find a place of peace and happiness in their lives. You read on some sites and on FB and you would think that we all sat in our misery 24/7 and we don't need to be perceived that way. If you are miserable 24/7, then you need to seek professional help and find the answers within yourself. Ranting, raving and calling names won't change a thing.

The bottom line, for me, is this. When I was a teenager, I was betrayed, abandoned, made to feel shame, assaulted and suffered the loss of my newborns. That was awful and shame on any and all who contributed to that experience. I am no longer a teenager. I am a senior citizen and if I let all that happened almost five decades ago decide my current state of happiness, shame on ME.

To my adoptee friends, shame on all who really caused your adoption (the Industry, those who fuel it and society). But you are adults...some of you are even grandparents. If you are calling names and raging at all mothers, shame on YOU. Shame, especially, on those who refuse to accept the truth of the BSE and who lump all of us under the heading of birth things.

I have made some personal progress in recent years. There was a time when I would have likened our experience in the BSE to the Holocaust. Yeah, there were a lot of us, but most of us came out of it well-fed and alive though grieving. It is easy to over-dramatize just as it is easy to not take it seriously enough. Balance is essential. We all have lives to live and if I thought that I would be required to never know peace of mind or happiness because of that one aspect of my life, I would have ended it all, years ago.

And, of course, while the concept of a primal wound is feasible, it has, to too many adoptees, become THE PRIMAL WOUND (*terrified scream)!!!!! What has been done with a simple theory has become an excuse to consider one's pain more important and worse than anyone else's, especially the mothers. It has become an excuse for not facing issues and a way to blame others for their shortcomings. Hey guys! You are adults. The buck stops with you.

The ones who shout the loudest are the ones who want us to bow, scrape, prostrate ourselves upon hot coals while begging forgiveness for something that was as much done to us as to them. They say that they were the only INNOCENT victims and refuse to look at the times and social structure that made us vulnerable and helpless victims as well. Remember, that an adopter wrote that book.

Fine, as I have said before. Call YOUR mother anything you like, but I am not now, nor have I ever been, a birth thing. We want to help, but having it demanded of us, being told we owe this to strangers, those who are not even our own children, is not a good strategy. It just isn't the way to win our support.

Has it occurred to anyone that we have better things to do with our time than accepting abuse or dishing it out? Chicken Little says that the sky is going to start falling, today. I think I'll sit back, have a cup of Mocha Java, pet whichever dog winds up in my lap and watch the show. We'll probably grill burgers, tonight.

Now THAT's what I call "Rapture!"

Angst, Drama and Our Terminal Uniqueness

I first heard the term, "Terminal Uniqueness," when I was in treatment for my eating disorder. I was learning about depression, self-involvement and how we could believe that we were worse than anyone else and hurt more than anyone else and were treated more badly than anyone else. All that negativity, that attitude, I learned, is a form of grandiosity, a claim to "ultimate specialness." I also call it the "more wounded than thou" syndrome.

We each live inside our own skins. No one else can get into our minds with us. We are on our own in there. Too often we commit the error of judging our insides by the outsides of others. Too often we don't accept our position as just another member of the human race. Way too often, I have learned to my own chagrin, we take ourselves much too seriously while not taking others as seriously as they merit being taken.

While in treatment and after years of attending Overeaters Anonymous and Al-Anon meetings, I have come to learn that Terminal Uniqueness can accompany the worst kind of self-pity. This is the kind of self-pity where we are so sure we are the Lone Ranger, that no one else but those in our position can possibly grasp the scope of our suffering and where we place blame and call names rather than pulling ourselves out of the mire of angst indulgence. This is the "warm pile of shit" they talk about in program. You sit in it so long that it becomes comfortable and you ignore the smell. This is where the fear of the unknown is too great to put aside the devil you know and reach out.

I noted, on my Facebook page, that coerced surrender to adoption and being adopted are not the worst or the only traumas people can experience. I was challenged, by an adopted person, to prove that by naming another experience that might be worse.

OK...try this one. During WWII, the Japanese invaded China. One story tells of a woman who watched the Japanese soldiers kill each of her children and her husband before her eyes and then, rape her repeatedly before taking her a prisoner and forcing her to serve as a "comfort woman"....an unpaid concubine for the Japanese troops. For her, rape became a nightly occurrence. She survived but was totally broken.

A friend of mine had a daughter who had fallen into bad company, was in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend by whom she had children and drugs were involved. My friend had managed to gain custody of her grandchildren right before her daughter's boyfriend beat her so badly he killed her, then cleaned her up, dressed her, put her in the tub and tried to say she went into convulsions. Right after that, this same friend lost her only son to injuries sustained long before in a motorcycle accident and her husband died a few short weeks later. They were not yet in their 60's.

In a little town in SC, three little children watched in horror as their mother put the barrel of a pistol in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Another child, coming home from school, found her mother hanging from the exposed beams in their den...she had hanged herself. A mother came home from work to find her son on the floor, dead from inhaling propane in a self-improvised gas chamber. A man went to his son's house to take him some food, hopefully to cheer him up after a painful break-up only to find him in his blood-spattered bedroom, a victim of his own hopelessness.

In famine-beset parts of the world, mothers watch their children die of hunger while they, themselves, slowly starve to death. People suffer long, slow, painful diseases that can only end in death while their helpless families watch. Children are kidnapped, tortured and killed by perverts. Shall I go on?

So "you got your troubles, I got mine." I refuse to pity myself and I am uncomfortable with pitying anyone else. Pity is not respect. Compassion can only go so far. I hate to see people doing what I once did...sucking on their resentment like a child sucking his thumb. Hate, resentment and derision hurt the person doing the hating worse than the hated. Resentment is a poison and stereotyping the objects of resentment is compounding the dose you consume.

I hate to come off sounding "preachy" but I am telling you what I have learned in hopes it might help you. If this causes one person to count their blessings and re-think their self-involvement, then I will be happy.

I've been molested and raped, but I don't think that all men are rapists or molesters. I was forced to surrender my two firstborn children to the adoption machine because my parents were ashamed, but I no longer resent my parents and I know that not all parents are bad. To carry that resentment with me would not be playing fair with myself or my loved ones. No one should live in pain for a lifetime over what was done to them when they were young and vulnerable.

Another mother and I were discussing how painful it was to talk about the fathers of our firstborns to them. The reasons were varied except for one...we loved these guys, very deeply, and they failed us. That was when she told me about the idea of recalling that piece of ourselves we left with these men and letting go. I thought I had done that, but I hadn't. Betrayal and abandonment was our lot, but it is not our identity. It was past time to move on with THAT one.

How much potential friendship must we lose...how much comfort and help must we turn aside until we just put on our big girl and boy drawers and get over ourselves? How many of us must shake our heads, sadly, realize that we tried and move on to living our own lives when we could have made a difference but for the resistance of the Terminally Unique?

I am sorry for such a downer of a blog post, but it was time for it. We are all special to someone and should be to ourselves. But that Terminal Uniqueness is dangerous stuff. To denigrate the pain experience of another and compare it to our own as being lesser-than is arrogant.

I am sick and tired of pleading the case of the BSE mothers to those who refuse to accept or listen because they are too busy sucking their thumbs of resentment. All you get from doing that is an unhappy life and a pruny thumb.

It's OVER

While I don't have the problem with Mother's Day that I used to have, I am still glad it is behind us..glad for a lot of people I know for whom it is a painful day, a day just to get through in one piece.

My Mother's day was lovely. While I had moments of missing my Mama, very much, I am more into being grateful that we had her for the time we did. She was special. And I have no regrets about my own motherhood, anymore. I did the best I could with what I had to do with at the time and, in the case of my two oldest, did the only thing I was allowed to do. My children were lovely, attentive and treated me like a queen. It was so nice. Hubby even came across with a nice gift, I didn't have to cook or do laundry or anything and it was Heaven.

But for so many people who were adopted and so many mothers who had their children taken for adoption, Mother's Day is torture. If they are still searching, closed records are a special source of irritation to them. Closed records, though, are irritating to all involved, Mothers and Adult Adoptees, reunited or not.

I can remember when every Mother's Day was bittersweet for me...sweet because I was raising two wonderful children, and bitter because there were two others that were not with me. It also took me a while to deal with Mother's Day after my own Mother suddenly passed away at the young age of 46.

I know Mothers and Adult Adoptees who have been rejected and have no reunion, even though they now know who and where. For them, the second Sunday in May is not a happy day. So much in their lives is unresolved. I have a dear Mother friend and a sweet (but effectively bitchy..LOL) Adoptee friend about whom I have special thoughts on Mother's Day. Hope is hard to have in some situations. They have pretty much been shown the door, thanks but no thanks, don't call me, don't come around, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye! I personally cannot understand such  behavior and think it is execrable, but it happens.

That's when we have to look within to find what we need in life. I had a friend whose Mother died in childbirth and her father just sort of wandered off. She was raised by an aunt. She managed. I have a friend whose daughter was beaten to death by her boyfriend. She has, since, lost another adult child and her husband. She manages.  My own husband's world was rocked by the suicide of his only child, a confused teenager. He has gone on to make his life mean something as a tribute to his son.

Their secret is no secret. They cherish life. They know that they are responsible for their own happiness and they don't lay the burden of their self-worth on the shoulders of others. It is when we immerse ourselves in the erroneous idea that the rejections we receive reflect on us rather than the rejectors, that we lose ourselves in pain. Adopted or not, Surrendering Mother or not, life is a crap shoot and we take the numbers that are thrown. We have the ball and we have to make the game a good one. No one else, no one event or person, can fill the cup. We fill our own cups and the better the attitude the more palatable the drink.

I am not trying to diminish the pain of anyone else. It is what it is. All I am doing with this post is offering a way to build a ladder and climb out of the pit. For some, like me, it takes a lot of counseling and some painful, personal epiphanies to get above ground level. It also takes a real and strong desire to get past the pain and learn how to deal with life. If you are there and are not fearful of being honest with yourself, it can be done. Things won't be perfect, but you will know how to sail the sea of life and how to patch your boat when your run into the reefs.

As I watched the devastation unfold in Japan, and the twisted wreckage of the American tornado outbreak, I had to realize that our trauma, while painful and worthy of recognition, is not the only kind of pain that can be visited upon the human psyche. It is not the worst or the best...it just is one among many. None of us are the Lone Ranger of emotional pain and suffering. What about the Mother in the famine areas of Africa who watches her child starve to death while she starves, too? There's an abundance of suckage, there.

Yes, there is a dark side to life, everywhere, just like we have learned about the darkness of surrender and adoption. But there are also macaroni necklaces, little handprints, double flowers, "edible bouquets," jokes, silliness, good books and music to dream by. You lose some, you gain some. I'm sitting in our doctor's office, right now, while hubby is getting his check-up. He has some problems, but he IS 71. He is actually in pretty good shape and the doctor is pleased...so far. Yay...small miracles and tiny bits of sunshine. I am learning to keep these things in my pocket and pull them out when the gray days hit.

To all my friends who struggled through Mother's Day, it's MONDAY!! It's over and you might want to look for something about which you can be happy as your self-assigned, Monday chore. It's there if you look hard enough. It won't make the bad part go away. But it balances those scales and life IS a balancing act. I also send you all the warmest and most sincere hugs I have to give because I know what it's like.

So, that is my post-Mother's Day wish for all. May you have balance, hugs and happy moments.

In the final analysis, what else is there?

Have You Hugged Your Mom/Child Today?

In the midst of all that is frightening and sad in this crazy world of ours, there come moments of beauty. I felt my heart literally fill up and soar for a dear friend, yesterday. Her reunion with her adult son has been troubled and marred with many broken promises of meetings, painful phone conversations, anger and hurt. It isn't rare and that is sad to know, but when it happens to you, it is YOUR pain.

On April 18th, after many years with no contact other than sporadic phone conversations, my friend spent her son's 44th birthday with him and it was good. She also got to know her "other" grandchildren and an adorable great-grandson. A lover of warm climates, she made the trek north into the late, spring cold and warmed her heart. It was worth the trip.

I can't convey her feelings. I imagine she will do that at some point, herself. But I know that I felt a thrill for her. She now has one of those special memories to hold inside. Her reunion, over two decades, is why I say "Never say Never." You never know what might come to pass if you go about your business of making a good life for yourself and keeping the door open for the missing loved one.

I wrote a blog the other day about an adult child being rejected by her Mother. For many years, my friend felt the sting of this rejection from her son. I dare say that the rejections were caused by the same affliction...self hatred. The problem is that the other person has to hurt for one's hatred for oneself. Those that experience this hatred of self, often prefer to live in denial and lies rather than make that fearful journey into the unknown, to self-esteem. Self-pity and emotional distance are easier to handle because those are the devils they know.

No reunion is perfect. Only the best at wearing false faces never hit roadblocks or find themselves in contention with each other. Someone likened, on FB this morning, adoption to the "mental ward of the world." Good analogy! There are more old wounds, insecurities, misinformation and confusion in this arena than you can find, even in the world of politics and that is saying something. For the most part and from my observations, I would say that we and our children have been royally screwed and they didn't even buy us dinner.

It takes courage to go back, time and time again, to try to repair the damage, create a relationship and put your emotions on the line. Most of us have learned to cherish the good moments and work through the rough times. There are no guarantees.

Two people whom I hold in high esteem, put themselves out there in the past few days. One had a successful encounter and one had heartache on a sheet of legal pad. But they both are resilient and brave and I am proud of both of them.

There are people (some of them very arrogant and self-promoting) who insist that being anti-adoption is unrealistic. They say there will always be a need for it. I see that there will always be a need for some sort of secure, child-centered way to care for children that won't mess with their identities or heritage. But nothing, NOTHING, can make me see adoption as even a necessary evil to that end. I hate it. I hate what it has done to millions of Mothers and their children. I hate that it has created a minefield out of what should be a natural and comfortable relationship.

To my Sister Mothers, to my dear Adoptee friends...Kudos for your courage in walking through the minefield. Group Hug, anyone?

Just A Note To Say......

She agonized over that letter. She was placing herself on the line. Years of hopes and longings and needs went into that carefully worded but heartfelt missive. She sent it off with her heart in her throat, hopeful, yet afraid to hope. She just wanted her Mother and Mother's track record, to date, had not been very good. She sent it Certified and knew when it was received. She just kept putting one foot in front of the other and functioning as she waited for a response.

What she received back from her Mother was more than a dismissal. It was an insult. It was cruel. It was hand-written on a piece of paper torn from a legal pad. It had phrases in it like "I made the right decision" and "have a good life" or things of that nature. She didn't even sign it "Mother."

I opined, and I think I am right, that this Mother really hates the person she was when she conceived her daughter, gave birth and surrendered. It was all her dirty little secret, something she wanted to pretend never happened. Her adult daughter gave the proof to the lie. But Good Old Mom keeps hanging on to the lie by her fingernails, determined to erase that which can never be erased. To protect the lie that she mainly tells herself, now, she must reject the product of an ill-considered relationship. The problem is, that she can't escape herself. Where ever she goes, there she'll be.

I want to tell her that one of my children was conceived in an act of violence...rape. But he is not his sire. He is my child. He doesn't make me feel bad about something over which I had no control. His presence doesn't bring up the horror of his conception when I see him or talk to him because I separated him from that a long time ago. Rather than lying to myself about it, I sought counseling and healing.

Our pasts are part of us all until the day we die. It forms, defines and refines us. You can learn from some mistakes and consign them to the memory vaults. But you cannot just dismiss, out of hand, an adult child without causing some real pain. This Mother is either heartless or is so numb to her own feelings that she is sure her daughter will not hurt. I won't begin to claim to know what convoluted reasoning is in her head. I just know she is wrong.

In the AA "Big Book" there is a passage called "The Promises." One of these promises is that "we will neither regret the past nor wish to turn our back on it." There was a time when shame and guilt kept me from re-visiting the events of my first two pregnancies. There was a weird kind of denial going on in me that I could be the person that I would have been if IT had never happened. That's hogwash. When I embraced the lessons I had learned and acknowledged my grief and loss, then I began to really grow. I am fortunate in that the growth began before reunion.

That need to erase the past and that denial can create an emotionally stunted human being if one is not careful. I understand why this woman is so resistant. I can even feel for her. But I cannot excuse her. It's past time to grow up and move on to the fullness of who she is. The young woman who was in an unwise relationship needs to be forgiven. I wish I could wave a magic wand and open the blind, inner eyes of many a rejecting mother...or rejecting adult adoptee for that matter.

That's the bitch of it. I can think of, right off the top of my head, 11 women, who would give their last drop of blood to receive the kind of letter from their adult, surrendered child, that this woman sent to her mother. They have been treated like crap by their lost children. The dynamics of having a child taken for adoption or being adopted and trying to search, to reunite...It's like walking into a mine field. The social engineers and the human traffickers have created a major cluster fuck and they don't even care. They are too busy counting the money.

They bill themselves as "helping to build families." What they have helped build is heartache.

I wish I could make it better, Sweetie.

Birthdays Are Getting Better

I think one of the hardest things for Nmoms and Adoptees is the birthday. I noted, on my daughter's card, that her birth is the one thing that no one else can share with us...it happened to the two of us and no one else. When you are in the limbo of closed, secret adoption and not reunited, birthdays are horrible. It is the anniversary, for many of us, of the beginning of the end.....Motherhood legally deleted and baby gone away...not a good thing to remember.

I had a ritual during the years we spent apart. On each child's birthday, I would buy a cupcake at the bakery, put in a candle and go off by myself for a bit. Often I cried the entire time I was "celebrating."

My daughter's birthday is Wednesday. April is such a lovely month but it was always hard for me to get through as was June, my son's birth month. The cards I send each year are an affirmation that I have mourned the loss of my babies and accepted, with love, the presence in my life of these two adults who are my flesh and blood.

I mentioned, in my previous post, that I considered myself my children's only true mother. I need to emphasize the "I" there in that sentence. My children know how I feel. They also know that I respect their feelings for those who raised them. That is how I, personally, feel, many of my adoptee friends also understand that feeling in me and it hasn't been a "deal breaker" for my reunions. I can never and will never bow at the altar of the adopters.

One reason is that awful concept of "Gotcha Day." What idiot adopter thought that a child would like this kind of celebration? Their birth is as important to them as non-adopted children. To me, that Gotcha thing is as inane, facetious, and distasteful as female adopters taking hormones and trying to breast-feed their acquired children.

One thing that I have learned in the past 17 years since I emerged from the good beemommy fog is that adopters are NOT a lot of things. They are not perfect, saintly, superior or deserving of praise just because they got what they wanted. They are human beings. They make the same mistakes that every one else makes in equal proportion. They can be hateful, hostile, possessive and insecure. A few develop the ability to bite their tongues and be concerned about what the adopted person needs. I'll bet that's hard to do.

I will never tell an adopted person that they shouldn't love their adopters or see them as rightful parents. That is their prerogative and not mine. I will respect how they feel. They have a shared history with these people that we, unfortunately, were denied. Just don't expect me to love them, too. Don't expect me to put up with hostility with my head bowed. For the sake of my children, when this has happened, I would just shut up and back off. But I kept my back straight and my head high when I did. I don't hate the adopters, and I am really no longer angry at them so much as I pity them their insecurities. I believe in civility, and respect is a two-way street. It might be hard to treat, with respect, the woman you throught of as a threat and a personal brood mare. But it can be done, and should be.

If I have any message for those who adopt, it would be that I did NOT give my children to you. I gave YOU to them because I had no other choice.

I also refuse to see myself as a part of any so-called "Triad." There is no equality in adoption and there are too many other players in the field to come up with a discernible, geometric representation of the experience. To me, it is nothing more than a great, big cluster F***...painful, confusing and damaging.

But, since I have reunited with my two adult children, I have finally mourned the forever loss of my babies. I have mourned the years we missed when birthday cards and calls and other things were impossible. I have come to terms with and have learned to direct and use my anger at the injustices done to us...Nmothers and Adopted. Those who say you don't make progress, don't try.

And yes, Birthdays are easier than they were, for me, anyhow.

Floods, Rugs and Reunions

There are floods and there are Tsunamis and earthquakes. They all cause damage to homes and people. So does the separation of mother and infant. There is even good evidence that the stress of coercion and isolation and worry during pregnancy can cause life long problems for both the child and the mother. Like a flood, the water may eventually recede but the damage is done.

We have watched as the people of Japan try to pick up the pieces after a disaster of historical proportions. For some, still searching for missing family, the tides may return the bodies of their lost ones, but there will be no repairing them. There will be no joyful reunion for these people.

Anyone who has ever been inside a flood damaged home knows that much has to be discarded before it can be rebuilt and it will never be the way it was. Many an opportunistic business will try to convince you that if you use their product or call their service, it will all be just like new. That's not a reality where there has been a true disaster. Sometimes, when the waters soak the rugs and the walls, there is nothing to do but rip up the carpet, tear out the drywall and try to build up again or throw up one's hands and relocate to an area where the danger of such a catastrophe is lessened.

I watch as so many mothers and their adult, reunited children reach, hungrily, for some kind of normalcy in their relationships. It's not easy to do when there is so much damage that has been exacerbated by years of ignoring the waters that inundated the rooms of their perceptions, psyches and hearts.

Some folks, when flooded out, scrap the whole mess and build something different. I wonder if that is what we should do. We are more than mere friends. We share flesh, blood, DNA and the trauma of that separation. When we finally reconnect, we are familiar strangers...known but unknown..and it is awkward and emotionally draining on both ends, and hard work to find that place where we can be comfortable with each other.

It is a fact that many of us spend our time with each other walking on eggshells, careful of every word we say. Some of us suppress our true feelings and don't always respond with honesty for fear of chasing the other away. Using the flood analogy, we dry the walls as best we can, then throw on some primer and paint..cosmetically okay, but the rot is still in the walls.

From overly courteous to overtly hostile, these relationships run the gamut. Perhaps the best thing to do is to really scrap the whole thing and start from the ground up. We can't re-birth and re-raise our adult children and the regression so often seen where the adult adoptee goes back to being a wounded infant and we regress to the frightened, shamed and bullied girl can't make for a healthy relationship, especially if we lay that on each other.

Have you ever searched the racks, looking for a special occasion card for your reunited child or your Nmom and tried to find one that doesn't refer to shared experiences of a life spent together? That is what is missing. That is what cannot be repaired or renewed.

Here's a concept. What if, before we explored the relationship, we worked on those issues within ourselves with professionals, support groups, etc. and allowed those inner babies and girls to grow up along with the rest of our beings before attempting reunion? I know too many who have said, "had I only known......." The fact is that, when many of us entered reunion all those many years ago, we had no idea we had been in a flood. We counted on love and the excitement and drama of the event to carry us on into the future. WRONG.

Let's face it. The government isn't the one to do the healing and the Industry? Well that's laughable. To ask an adoption professional to help us heal is like asking the fox to look after the hens. They want us to just go away and shut up and they want our children to be good little life-long possessions and be properly "grateful." We have straight search groups. We have search support groups. We have support groups for reunited mothers and adoptees and for those in search. But we have no real, designated, pre-reunion support and information groups that are effective in helping those involved get off to a better start and how to anticipate and navigate the flood waters of old pain and confusion.

Right now, if you look at some of the forums where those in troubled reunions congregate, you'll find nothing more than a major, nasty bitch-fest. There is no progress...only spinning of wheels. Hostility is encouraged rather than explored and abated. I wonder how much of that fury and frustration comes from wanting something we just can't have?

The damage is done and the phenomenon of reunion has introduced a whole, new classification of parent/child relationships. Years, fears, secrets and lies have flooded the rooms of our emotions and psyches and, once the mess is cleaned out, then something new has to be built in its place. It is what it is.

I consider myself to be the only true mother to my surrendered children. I get a lot of flack for that but that is how I feel. That is why I use the term "adopters." That's my own, personal conviction. But I know that I was an absent mother for the first 30+ years of their lives and I understand, accept and respect the feelings they have for those who raised them. I just do not feel constrained to share those feelings. So I can't be Mother in the traditional sense and they can't be my children in the traditional sense. Like I said, the shared life experience isn't there. It was lost in the flood. But, maybe there can be a new class or type of the Mother/Child dyad born out of the simple need to connect and know.

So, perhaps we need to seek out this new model for the Reunited Mother and her Reunited Adult Child. Was our mistake always in trying to recapture what had already been damaged beyond repair? When all the flood has left is a foundation, then you build on that. I don't have any magic answers as to how, but I have a couple of ideas of my own..too late for me and many others, but maybe not for some of the younger members of the closed, secret adoption era. Don't have unrealistic expectations of each other and realize that you are starting from the ground up. I'm sure others might have wisdom to add to that.

Meanwhile, I have stopped trying to save the rug that was inundated with water, mud and worse. A shop-vac is not going to save it.

Who knows what we can build if we throw that rug away, tear out the soggy drywall and decide, together, how and what to build from the foundation?

Mother Non Grata

She personifies the adjective "harmless" and "kindly." She simply and ingeniously expresses her love and her pain to those who take the time to listen and understand. She's never really done anything to hurt anyone. Her only "crime" is a non-crime. She gave birth, was unmarried and was coerced into surrendering her son during the Era of Mass Surrenders. She knows, now, who and where he is. But he wants nothing to do with her.

She doesn't want much...just a chance to look at him, a hug, some conversation. Her heart is full of love for him but it is now couched in the pain of his rejection of her. She is treated like a threat..this bright senior, who walks with a cane. She wonders how he might explain to the police if they were called to remove her from his doorstep. "Officer, this woman is stalking me?" Yeah, that is one dangerous granny, there, Fella. This is my dear friend and she hurts in her heart.

She has lost her child and that child's children and generations that will come. Would it hurt him to make those tiny concessions....to send her an occasional "Hi, How are you?" Who would he be betraying? His adopters might be putting pressure on him. He might be holding his anger to him like a toddler holds on to a blankie. As toxic as that misguided anger is, it is the devil he knows. To let go of that resentment, and to honor this woman's place in his life is a proposition that must terrify him. Anger is a surface emotion. Scratch it, and you usually find fear and sadness.

She still hopes and prays that he will give her a chance to see him, just once, to explain what happened, to let him know he was and is loved. Maybe that is what he is fearing. That the lies about the careless and uncaring beemommy will come tumbling down around him and the truth will put its light to the dark and unreasoning things he has been told or has imagined and made real. I fear he might wait to see that light until it is too late.

I've heard, directly from the mothers, of many such cases. Mothers aren't the only ones who reject. Even those of us with relationships often get reminded of how secondary we are in the lives of our adult children. When you are told, "you only gave birth to me," or "it was meant to be that I was adopted by my (adopters)," when you are treated as nothing more than a repository for medical information and are not even allowed to attend important events in your adult child's life, you know you are being punished. Because, because, because...no matter what kind of papers we did or didn't sign...we became MOTHERS when we gave birth to you. We've been slapped in the face enough for one lifetime, don't you think?

I think that some are dismayed to find that we are not sluts, crack whores or deviants. There is the occasional exception that proves the rule, but the majority of us are accomplished, educated, some of us married,  grandmothers with talents and self-respect. My daughter told me, when we reunited, that "it was okay" if I didn't know who her father was. WTF?? I know of another mother who is at the "it is what it is" stage who was told by her adult child that it would have been easier for her if Mom had turned out to be a drug-addicted prostitute or words to that effect. The stereotype of the surrendering mother doesn't help us a bit. I would hope that our adult children would love having a natural mother they can respect. We are not that kind of person now, and we weren't then.

Most of us understand that our children are going to feel love and loyalty for the people who raised them. But I can remember someone saying to me, about 17 years ago, "If a mother can love more than one child, why can't a child love more than one mother?" I dunno about that one. Usually we are all allotted only one mother and, if your family is like the majority, you had to share her with siblings. I wonder if sibling rivalry is all about fighting for the parents' attention? That has to be a part of it.

But I digress...or maybe not. I have also seen many an adult, who was adopted as an infant, resent the fact that the Natural Mother went on with making some kind of life for herself. It matters not to them that we carried the loss and the grief with us for the lifetime of that surrendered child. What matters is that they seem to often see us as, somehow, undeserving of any kind of life if we "abandoned" them. How dare we have other children? How dare we love those other children? How dare we laugh or love?

Not all the angriest adoptees are the ones who are rejected by their Natural Mothers. There are many who are wanted, welcomed, searched for and loved who just want that woman to bow, scrape, beg forgiveness and rot in solitude or, at the very least, sit in the back of the bus and only come forth when invited and then, the head must be properly bowed. In many cases, she is either pulled forward and pushed away at the same time, or else she is cut off, entirely. She is a non-presence in their lives. These are the ones who need to do a reality check and grow up, quickly, before their brain sets up like cement.

So rejection is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways and leaves wounds on the mother every bit as often and as deep as those on the adult child. It's funny in that the adoptee rejects the mother because of all the lies they were told. The mother rejects the adoptee because of all the lies she has told herself. Either situation is dysfunctional and unfair to all involved.

To these adult children of surrendering mothers and to the mothers who live their own lies....it's time to grow up, gear up and face the truths and accept the love. There are a lot of us moms who don't have a whole lot of time left.

A Word To Cowards and Other Rejecting Mothers

I just read a blog by Real Daughter that brought me to tears like few blog posts have ever done. I have felt this way in the past about my sisters who live in their fear and shame and trauma without ever searching for a better way. When they do that, their adult, surrendered children are the ones who suffer from their mother's trauma as well as their own. I want to take these Nmoms by the shoulders and shake them until their teeth rattle.

I have watched this spirited woman as she made the journey from the possession of her adopters and the object of rejection by her Nmother to a person, whole within herself. When we make that journey, we don't find perfection, but we do usually find a nice person, no worse and no better than anyone else, with whom we can live. I wonder, if I had not made that hard journey to self-acceptance prior to reunion, would I have been one of the mothers who rejects? I know that the burden of grief, guilt, shame and fear was with me for a long time until I got sick and damn tired of carrying it. I hate it that some mothers hide within the depths of that burden, content to continue sitting in their safe, warm pile of shit and ignoring the smell.

I have preached a lot, to adopted adults, about understanding their Nmoms and letting go of the blame and hate...about not tarring all of us with the same brush, and trying to put themselves in our shoes. If we don't do the same in return, we can't really call ourselves mothers. No, I still won't accept the "abandoner" crap or the "I hate all Nmoms because of mine," mindset. But I do understand it a lot better. Fortunately, this particular adoptee sees personal growth as positive and has the courage to pursue it. "Nuff said on that side.

Now! To those recalcitrant and cowardly mothers, WOMAN UP!! This is the child of your body. The past is gone. It can't hurt you anymore. If your near and dear are condemning of the fact that you surrendered a child, then their love must come with some pretty harsh conditions. If you have kept a secret for all those years, the truth will set you free, literally! Reunion isn't an easy road to travel, but those that do usually don't regret it.

Your baby is gone, forever, but he/she didn't die. That adult, standing in front of you with their hand stretched out to you is your new reality. How can you not enjoy the resemblance and wonder at the synchronicities? You still carry cells of that person inside you. Your DNA is in every one of their cells, bone, blood and sinew. They need answers, and, whether you will admit it or not or even know it, SO DO YOU! What can it hurt for you to make a new friend? And what better friend to have that the blood of your blood?

I wish there weren't so many of you out there. You damage our image and put barriers between people that don't even know you by your coldness. Your fear is misplaced and your shame is in your head, only. To quote a book that helped me immensely, when you grow and accept yourself, "...you will neither regret the past nor wish to turn your back on it." There lies the way of sanity.

I hope some of you read this. I hope you might want to have some dialogue with mothers who accepted and even searched for their adult children. We can tell you that the fear goes away. The suppressed grief does surface but it was doing you no good down there where you had buried it. You can go through it with support you didn't have back then. Yes, you might find some anger emerging, but anger is just an emotion. It's what you do with it that is the important thing. And, for me at least, the best part is saying goodbye to that stupid, frakking scarlet letter of shame. We never deserved it. C'mon...grow a set of cast iron ovaries and meet your adult child halfway.

You might learn something. I can't promise that it won't hurt, but it can, most definitely, help heal.

(We'll talk about the adult adoptees who reject their Nmoms on another day.)

Mother...More Than A Name

In having discussions with my own reunited children and other adult adopted people, especially those whose Natural Mothers were less than welcoming and loving, I have seen a truth that lays in my stomach like jagged rocks. Rejection from either end is a singular type of pain. These people hurt for real. That pain cannot be ignored or dismissed.

I have characterized, on occasion, some adoptees as being "needy." Well, OF COURSE THEY ARE!! The first lessons a child learns of lovability, worth and acceptance are learned in the arms of his/her real mother. Deprived of that and then placed into the arms of a literal stranger who doesn't feel, smell or sound 'right,' then the first message that child receives is garbled and confusing, no matter how kind and loving the adopters.

The problem is in finding our way when we reunite as adults. It's to late to undo what was done. And I have learned that all the love and acceptance in one's capacity to give is not enough to heal either party. When a Natural Mother, steeped in fear of reliving the old pain, still feeling the shame, old tapes playing in her head and old lies heavy on her heart..when she closes the door to her adult child, the problem is often compounded, tenfold. She gets no healing and her child is further hurt. Unfortunately, we all, mothers, adoptees, John and Jane Doe on the street, have the constitutional right to decide with whom we will or will not associate. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, that's the way it is. One person's rights end where another's begins. That doesn't change the fact that rejection hurts.

A lot of these mothers don't seem to be able to separate the person of her child from the trauma of the experience. That seems to be true with a lot of women who were raped or were the victims of incest. How I got past that feeling with my son, I don't know, but I managed to separate his existence from his conception while he was still in my womb. I think I just needed and wanted a child so very much after losing my daughter...but I was not allowed to keep him, either.

If the adopted adult is already feeling anger, bitterness, and has been given or invented and imagined false and demeaning information about the mother and is then rejected, "Katy, bar the door!" That anger is so virulent it spills over onto the mothers of other adopted people and we fight back. If their experience with their adopters and adoptive family was painful, we have a wounded tiger. Underneath all this, is an aching sadness that is only thinly disguised by the anger. I have learned that anger is, more often than not, only a surface emotion and that there are layers and layers of sadness, confusion, fear and other emotions underneath the surface turmoil.

Even if accepted, if an adopted adult is in that "testing" stage where they want to manipulate their mother into proving her love and fixing them, and the mother backs away, responding to the simple instinct of self-preservation, then they can let the Hounds of Hell loose upon ALL mothers. It's not right but it is human nature. The thorns prick us all. Even good reunions have bad moments.

Quite an few of us Natural Mothers have made, and rightly so, the statement that we are only mothers to our own surrendered children. We will not bear or accept the punishments and blandishments meant for the rejecting mothers. We will not be referred to as breeders, birthers, abandoners, bio-abandoners, or egg donors and it is not our responsibility to make up to the adult child of another woman for the shortcomings of their particular Natural Mother. We do not stereotype you...don't stereotype us and don't judge us all by your situation.

Having said that, again, clearly, I have to admit that my heart hurts for a lot of these people who feel they need that maternal affirmation/acceptance in order to be whole. Were it possible, I would be mother to them all. I would gather them all in my arms and sing lullabies and give love and do all in my power to take away the hurt. And it would all be in vain. I am not their mother. I am only mother to my own children.

I was watching on one of the science channels the other night, a program that was examining the mysteries of the Universe. They were talking about how all of the things that make life possible on this planet came from the stars, comets, nebulae, etc. We are all made of the stuff of stars. Break us down into our basic chemical components and you will find those same elements  in asteroids, meteors and even hot, burning suns. Inside each of us is a completeness that we must look inward to find.

It is good to have others in our lives, to have loved ones who see us as important and need us. But it is more important to accept and love ourselves and find what we need within us. The mother bird pushes the chick from the nest and says, "Fly...go be a bird." Parents age and die. How could any of us go on if we haven't realized our own right to be here? If we remain dependent on others for our emotional needs, then we die of emotional starvation when a feast is available within our own beings.

A lot of people see the "Desiderata" (Max Erhmann; 1927) as trite and overly simple. But there is one passage in this well-known piece that I carry with me at all times. It helped me through my own dark wanderings. "Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."


So, as children of the Cosmos, we are all bound to each other in a kinship that surpasses the mundane. To my adopted friends, look at your tummy and observe your navel. It proves that you came into this world through the same passage way we all traveled. You have a right to know WHO, you have a right to seek out other adult, natural family members to ask your questions and you have a right to be happy with who you are, as you are.

You have a right to be here.

A Valentine Wish For All

As it has been shown here and as I have said on my FB page, we don't all see eye to eye. We don't all agree on the same course to take or have the same priorities. Some of us are more negatively affected than others although we all bear our scars.

But today, in my eyes, we are all just a large group of wounded mothers and their adult children who need love, even when we are at our most unlovable. It's hard to be sweet and likeable 24/7, anyway, even for those who haven't been traumatized by the grief without a grave.

So, whether you like or don't like the Primal Wound theory, whether you have a good reunion or no reunion or a bad one, whether you think all parties to the adoption farce should have equal access or not, you are all my Valentines, today. You are all in my heart and on my mind.

Whether or not you agree with my personal opinions, whether or not you have the same aims and goals that I do, I am loving you, today. We are all in that same, big, old, leaky boat sailing the sea of uncertainty and anger and confusion. We are all survivors, fighters and seekers of the truth. We might not agree on how to get there, some of us might be behaving from our broken and wounded state, but we all suffered an inconceivably painful loss. We all need love and affirmation. We all need to hear our truth told and heard.

So, short and sweet, because tomorrow we will probably be wrangling over the fine points again, Will You Please Be My Valentine, today?

With Love,
Just a Mom

Door Mats of the Word, Rebel!!

I have really enjoyed seeing the New Year's resolutions of my loved ones. I am impressed by two. My son has resolved to develop more of an empathetic personality. I am so proud that he would make this kind of decision about his own demeanor.

And another loved one, another thinking member of our clan, has resolved to quit being a door mat, to learn how to say no and to not be drawn into things she cannot change. Good for you, Honey!!!

I made the same decision, although not for a New Year's resolution. I don't usually make any resolution on the first of January except to continue to hope, love and do my best to be a good person. This came as I entered my 40's and realized that I needed to be my own advocate and support because I was leaning too much on others.

I can so identify with the scary leap from door-mat-hood to full, autonomous human being. I was a wuss who couldn't say no and who tried to fix things for others. I went along with what others said, even when I disagreed, deep inside myself, with what was being said. Giving myself the right to say "No," to speak up and have my own opinions was the first step in recovering the woman whose personality was ravaged when her two, oldest children were taken from her.

I had to learn that it was more important to respect and like myself that to be liked by everyone. Of course, you have to take the flak from those who liked the devil they knew rather than this new, more assertive and self-confident person. I graduated from meek and easily upset to "shrill, bitter, angry, bitchy" and many other adjectives used by the folks who disagreed and who were used to me bending to their wills. It's part of the bargain. I learned to live with the disappointment.

But I noticed other side effects of this change in my perspective and attitude. I stopped whining and started opining. I stopped the pity parties and put on my smarty pants. I developed the ability to laugh with and at myself. In fact, I laughed a lot more than I had before. I learned to ride the waves of life without going berserk. It was like a curtain, slowly lifting to show a sunlit vista and it is worth facing the fear and entering the struggle. To say I am perfectly there would be a lie. But the work is progressing nicely.

And I learned that I did not deserve what was done to me as a single, teen mother.

Strong women who stand up for themselves, no matter how courteously they do so, will always be called "bitches" by her detractors. Well, a bitch is a female dog and there are some of those noble critters that I respect a lot more than some people I know. So call me a bitch if you have to. I'll take it as a compliment.

I just wish I had been enough of a bitch and less of a door mat in '62 and '63. Of course, back then, NICE girls were career door mats. It was pounded into us at home, in school, at church and in every media presentation of what was the ideal woman.

I have a loved one who went to far in the other direction and was a bit of a belligerent bully when we were growing up. I didn't want to be like that. I would rather be respected than incur fear. I feared all authority figures in my life and let one or two get away with things that no one would get by with, today. It is tragic that I was not where I am today, back then. Things would have been very different.

But spilled milk calls for a clean-up. I think an application of justice and redress would do the job. Meanwhile, I am rooting for my relative and her courageous resolution. May her ovaries grow big and strong!

Counting the Blossoms On My Tree

My coffee was cold, my wallet was slim,
It all looked so very sad to me.
So I went outside to the end of the garden,
And counted the blossoms on my tree.

With colors rich for the hummingbirds,
No blossom there was exactly the same.
I treasured each as I counted them,
And to each one, I gave a name.

For in my life, these blossoms grew,
People, places and memories.
They grew in my heart like the sweet miracles.
That grew in my garden on my tree.

No matter the clime, the cause or the curse,
Or life's rough stones that are thrown at me,
It's just a short walk down the garden path,
Where I can find a lovely tree.

I'll sit in its shade, I'll roll in Fall's leaves,
I'll watch the snow gather with serenity,
And when Spring comes to my garden fair,
I'll go count the blossoms on my tree.

Robin Westbrook (c) 01/01/2011

This year is a blank slate, with 364 days of possibilities for ourselves and our causes. I don't make resolutions like most do. I just remind myself, on the first of each year, to hope and to care and to try to learn. This is my 65th New Year. I have seen over a half century of rapid change and horrors and tragedies. I have also seen heroism of the best kind, watched people learn the importance of being able to laugh at and with themselves, and found that age brings, not so much wisdom, as an increase in perspicacity.

I don't know where we will be with our search for acknowledgement and justice this time next year or if it will even advance very much. But one of the blossoms on my tree is the deep and abiding knowledge of the righteousness of our cause. I no longer have to justify it to anyone.

And that, in and of itself, is progress.

Caution; Raw Nerve-Do Not Touch

It seems I touched a few of those raw nerves with my blog, yesterday, about codependency. I'm glad I did. It's time, I feel, for those of us who have been abraded by the brier patch of adoption to put some salve on those wounds and get over ourselves. There comes a point when we have to quit trying to hold a house of cards together against the wind of truth.

I'm back to the jackass in the ditch, again. We all know how the dysfunction of adoption separation has adversely affected both adopted people and natural mothers. But isn't it past time that we stopped using that past trauma as an excuse to fight among ourselves and started fighting back and allowing personal growth? Let's get the jackass out of the damn ditch!

This is personal stuff. This is the only life we have. We can allow misperceptions and mythology to continue on being in control, or we can take back the helm and steer our own course.  We just have to have the courage to hear and accept the truth and learn that it isn't always about us.

When I was a little girl and someone said something I didn't want to hear or I wanted to win an argument without having the words, I would stick my fingers in my ears and sing, real loud, "La, la  la, la....." until the other person shut up or left. Yes, that was childish. I was a child. But I see a big bunch of adults doing the same damn thing and it is very unbecoming.

PAPs and adopters are good at this. If you refuse to hear and accept the truth, then you can keep on at what you are doing, guilt-free....sorta. But that's their own character defect with which to deal. If any of them can listen and learn and be honest with themselves, good for them.

Many adopted people don't want to hear the truth about how they came to be adopted. It's easier to be angry, believe every word their adopters told them and blame it all on Mommy. Many mothers don't want to let go of that fiction of the sacrificing mother/heroine. They might have to admit we were powerless and/or got scammed and that would be to admit we were vulnerable (weak) and/or naive (stupid). Boy, do we have our hang-ups or what?

And BOTH adopted people and mothers want a perfect (as they think it should be) resolution to it all, and there ain't no such animal. The part about regaining our emotional health and equilibrium goes way beyond open records and redress for the maltreatment of mothers. It is about who we choose to be now, how we choose to be treated and to treat others and whether or not we are brave enough to accept and integrate the truth into our hearts. It starts with one step in the direction of the realization of the fact that none of us know it all, that we cannot control everything and everyone around us and that we can all have the right to be respected if we give respect.

In some cases, unfortunately, we also have to learn when to let go. It is hard for someone who has no self-respect to respect others. No one, mother or adult child, should be an emotional punching bag for the other. If it doesn't work out, it's sad, but there is still a life to be led. When one or the other is severely dysfunctional, then taking it personally is really self-defeating.

I was just out back watching my husband play keep-away with our little dog. She has had it rough..lost her people, had little real training in life skills and spent a lot of time being barked at, having her food stolen and being pushed around by bigger dogs while in the kennel. They call her condition, "Kennel Shock." The dog running circles around her "daddy" is not the same dog we found at the SPCA kennel six weeks ago. Every day I see her grow. She no longer has "accidents" in the house. She is less fearful of strangers and other dogs. She walks with a prance and her tail up when before she stayed nose to the ground and wanted to run home if she saw anyone. While we were outside, the little dog two houses down started barking. That was usually a signal for Dolly to run back to the door and beg to go in. This time she ran to a good vantage point to investigate what all the noise was about. When she saw that Krista just wanted in, she ran back to play a bit longer. She is living in the now. She is forgetting what happened that led to the fearful and aggressive behavior she was showing. She's erasing the old tapes. She's living in the moment.

Now I don't think that we can just erase our memories and go blithely about as if none of this adoption separation crap never happened. But we can try living with what is. We can fight for justice for past and even
current  injustices and we can fight for equal civil rights, but we don't need to be fighting, blaming and carping at each other. We are adults. Dolly is no longer a puppy, and, while she has us, she needs to learn how to get on in the world in a healthy way. So do we, together in reunion or apart as in, "Oh well, it didn't work out," we have a right, all of us, to pursue happiness and enjoy peace of mind.  Being imperfect human beings, that happiness and peace of mind won't be perfect, either.

But wouldn't it be a lot better than that constant knot in your belly? The tears, the crushing need and the resentment are products of an unnatural situation that, yes, was unfair and horrible to us and to our children. But we can't change what happened then and the blame needs to go where it belongs.

As long as we fight each other and blame each other, the Industry and those that the Industry benefits are getting exactly what they want from us. Think about it.

Codependency And Real Relationships

An adopted friend had a quote on his page that I immediately stole from him. It says, so succinctly, what I have been trying to say for years. It was written by an English psychiatrist and author named Anthony Storr who, himself, underwent bouts of depression and had a childhood that was less than comforting. Dr. Storr said, "‎It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them." - Anthony Storr

When you examine the dynamics of adopting and, later, reunion, you find a lot of that kind of codependent need. It is for this reason that I believe adoption is a dysfunctional arrangement from the get-go. In the traditional infant adoption, this is an arrangement that calls upon the adopted child to fill the emotional needs of the adopters. Growing up with that kind of emotional pressure is damaging and a breeding ground for all manner of emotional disorders. Unfortunately, for quite a few adopted people, this kind of relationship is their model for what they think is "Love."

Many marriages and love affairs are of this ilk. Being "in love" and loving are often very different. When one is starry-eyed, swept away and stirred with passion, it's hard not to grow addicted to that feeling. The endorphins literally pour into the lover's system. It is too easy to attach one's self-image and worth to the responses of one's beloved and a crash is inevitable. When one leans on another for any sense of identity, the results can be disastrous. But it is wise for married people to keep a bit of  adventure in their lives together.


I have been in this kind of relationship and we are both better for it having ended. Learning about codependency and where it can lead has saved me a lot of heartache. In my marriage, today, my husband and I offer each other a whole person, not mirror images and certainly not the offer or expectation to carry the other, emotionally.

People who can't take rejection, who pine after the person who has ended the relationship and who may even go so far as to take their own lives or attempt to do so, have based their entire self-worth on the acceptance of the other. That's NOT love. Love can let go. It can be sad and hurtful, this letting go, but an emotionally whole person can face it and the life ahead with optimism.

The codependent person goes into a relationship, be it marriage, friendship or reunion, expecting emotional needs to be met by the other person. When that doesn't happen, in reunion, the road becomes bumpy and harsh. One of the most inane lines ever uttered by anyone was spouted by Tom Cruise in "Jerry McGuire" when he said to his lady-love, "You Complete Me." Whoa there, hoss! If you weren't complete to begin with, what would she want with you? But so many sighed and smiled and brushed away a tear at that sentiment.


Natural Mothers and their Adult, Surrendered Children have spent years wondering about the missing part of their family to the point that the emotional investment in the other person is huge. Reunion is based on expectations and needs, not all of them healthy. We are meeting familiar strangers, people who have their own likes, dislikes, politics, religious views, and attitudes. Not all of them are going to jibe and mesh with the greatest of ease. As I have said in an earlier post, the bond never really breaks, but it becomes very twisted and knotted. Many have referred to reunion as an emotional minefield and, when you add in the codependent expectations, you are in danger of a major explosion. We get angry and it starts a cycle of resentment and frustration. I was introduced to this model of the codependency/anger cycle when I was in treatment for my eating disorder.

I have watched this happen in more than one reunion and each participant always blames the other rather than looking within. Two human beings with so much to gain can sabotage themselves with their own insecurities and fears unless they can take a step back and an honest look within.

I wanted to be able to offer my two lost children a mother they could respect. I wanted them to see that they came from loving, decent, good, solid people. I was unprepared for their ambivalence and the insecurity of their adopters. I felt frustrated with my children who were adults, yet kept in this perpetual, dependent childhood by the entire construct of adoption. But this was all they knew. Knowing that I surrendered them against my will was not enough to re-build their sense of self. I couldn't do it for them. Only they can do that. This is sad but true because there is enough of the mother in me that I wanted to do that for them. Standing back and letting them find their way is tough.
There is enough pain and strife in the human condition without the trauma of surrender and separation. I know now, that I was codependent and totally vulnerable when I lost my two oldest children to the Industry. I folded, collapsed upon myself and waved the white flag and one of the pressures put on me depended upon my need for the approval and acceptance of my family. I also spent years being obsessed with the father of my first born and that was really unhealthy. So I am no stranger to codependent thinking and behavior and I am not one to judge anyone for being immersed in that strange malady.

But I do look askance at those who choose to remain in such a pit of emotional quicksand. It's scary to face it and overcome one's codependent nature, but the rewards for doing so are tremendous. It doesn't guarantee that you never will be hurt or sad or miss someone.

But it usually guarantees you will survive it all. And those of us who have been battered by adoption need the survival skills.



The Adoption Grinch Lives

I have been reading some very sad, pain-filled and frustrated comments on Facebook and elsewhere. Adopted adults and Natural Mothers, alike, have been fairly cursing the Holidays to the extent that one of my dearer friends would like to go into hibernation until Christmas is over.

I can't say too much against that, because I remember feeling exactly the same way. I would frantically try to make a perfect Christmas and push down the sadness, but it always caught up with me. When there is a hole in your heart and your family, it's hard to be Ho-Ho Jolly. There is pressure enough at this time of year without the added burden of being separated from a vital part of yourself.

If anything, we try harder than most to make the Holidays fulfill the unformed wishes of the lost and taken. I know that I loved Christmas with a passion until the first one I spent without my firstborn. After that, the lights lost their sparkle, the colors seemed duller and smiles were suspect. The once-soothing candlelit church services and sweet music became drab and meaningless. Had it not been for my raised children, I wonder if I would have even made the effort. I was desperate to make their Christmases good ones, but they never reached my frustrated attempts at perfection. I spent years trying to replicate the Christmases of my childhood.

I wish I could take all my friends with me, in spirit, to the lodge in the mountains of West Virginia where my husband and I and our little Dolly will spend the week of Christmas. We will not be rushing around, decorating, buying, wrapping and worrying that things are not good enough. Our time will be spent in front of the fire, baking goodies, enjoying the view, spending some time in the hot tub and watching the weather...hopefully, snow. There will be no crowds and jostling in line for concerts and cantatas. Our music will be from our own library of favorites and we will drink egg nog by candle light on Christmas Eve without having to rush anywhere. Since life is real, we will take what comes and if those plans go awry, we will still be glad we went, glad to be together and enjoying the adventure of whatever comes.

We did this last year and it was the best personal Christmas I can remember. Never mind that we came into WV on the tail end of a blizzard, with two feet of snow on the ground. Never mind that we had to spend two days and three nights in a very, very nice motel with a fireplace, a big tree in the lobby and good food nearby until the power at the cabin was restored and the road cleared so we could get to it. We talked and laughed with fellow stranded travelers. We laughed at Rocky deciding, after two days, that it was okay to go potty on the white stuff. We took pictures and read, watched TV and ate veggie plates and cornbread from the Cracker Barrel. We availed ourselves of some hot chocolate and goodies, courtesy of the motel. The cabin was beautiful when we got there. We stashed our goodies, put our little tree up (took 15 minutes, tops) lit a fire and settled in with smiles of appreciation. We even stayed a couple of extra days.

I think that was the first Christmas that my heart no longer felt partially empty and ravaged. The scars are there and sadness is part of the Holiday package when you have lived long enough to experience life. But this private, laid-back and quietly beautiful Christmas was my best one since childhood. I don't hold the same expectations for this one because things can always happen. We found that out last year. But we will still keep it simple, private and quiet. I don't expect Christmas to be provided by Currier and Ives. I gave up on that a few years back. I think spending Christmas in Florida did that to me. But, even if there is no snow, it won't be hot and people won't be wearing shorts and tee shirts on Christmas day.

Unlike our green friend, I sort of doubt if the Adoption Grinch even has a heart, much less one that will grow two sizes upon hearing the sound of Christmas cheer despite his attempts to sabotage it. Unfortunately, Old AG has succeeded where the other Grinch failed. And little Cindy-Lou Who (who was only two) is asking, "why?"

For some reasons, the platitudes of the industry and those that benefit from their work tend to fall a bit flat at this time of the year.

That's why we have made a new, personal tradition of love, adventure and peace of mind. I spent too many Holidays enduring and hurting. No more. I know where all my children are, they know I love them and that is better than I had before.

Merry Christmas, Dear Ones. Don't let the Adoption Grinch get you down.