Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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.

Monday, November 28, 2011

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.


Sunday, November 27, 2011

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

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

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.