Thursday, October 21, 2010

Only Connect

It was a Wednesday morning in early September. Callum, my elder son, was already back in school. Tobey, the younger, had another week off. We had stopped to visit a friend of his, and at 10 a.m., I found myself at a new dog park in Oakland supervising my dog and two children as they played in mud. I was getting my bearings when the phone rang. It was C's number.

I broke out into a cold sweat. I wasn't sure if it was C, her husband, a friend, or a pastor. I was certain that the message couldn't be good, though, and didn't have the strength to handle it without backup. I didn't want to break down in front of Tobey and his friend. I figured C had to be calling in response to the message I'd sent to M two days previously. I let the call go to voicemail and then immediately rang my beloved friend N, and texted my great adoptee friend Linda for advice. I knew I couldn't listen to the message. I saw it there on my phone, blinking and mocking me. Resourceful N came up with a plan, because I was paralyzed. She told me to come to her house at 2 p.m.; she would listen to the message, relay its contents to me, and then hold my hand as I listened to it.

The minutes ticked slowly by. I made my way to N's house. I gave her my phone and went to hide in the bathroom with my hands over my ears. I knew the message would cut me to the core and touch my deepest wounds. N listened thoughtfully and came to get me. She told me that in her estimation, it wasn't a bad message. She felt that C sounded frustrated, but not angry. I couldn't imagine that to be so. I returned to the bathroom so that N could play the message for Mark. It was brutal to know that my phone had captured the voice of the woman who gave birth to me, the same woman who cursed my very existence. It's quite a terrible thing to be hated by your own flesh and blood, for nothing you've done except be born.

N spoke calmly to me and eventually coaxed me to listen. She held my hand and pressed the button. A tired, and yes, frustrated--but also angry--voice articulated the following:

I hope this is Kara [pronounced incorrectly, of course]. I am calling from Mississippi to tell you to PLEASE STOP. I have answered all of your questions. My brother called me to tell me you sent him an e-mail; my mother is elderly and you will give her a heart attack. PLEASE stop. I'm asking you one more time, PLEASE STOP.


I felt for her. I understood how hard it must be to dredge up things long buried. Although most people assume I've never thought about her feelings, and urge me to do so, I've pretty much done nothing else for years. Weighing my needs against her pain, hating to hurt her. But at the same time, I was--and am--her child. Surrendering me did not sever the ties we share in blood. We had never spoken. She had never answered ANY of my questions except for the brief medical history the CI had taken by phone, and that had been incomplete. Willfully so. How had she convinced herself that she owed me nothing, that I mattered so little?

I winced at the disparity in our voices; I was raised north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and she below it. Had she kept me, my accent would have been the same as hers. It hurt to feel that this, the first time she addressed me by name, was in such a sharp, sad way. I wasn't welcomed, wasn't thought of with love. There was no homecoming, no sense of continuity. I was denied the reunion I had dreamed of; I had suffered the loss of C as an infant, and I suffered the loss of the relationship I had hoped for as I began to search.

And yet, for the first time, we had connected. She called me, spoke to me. I hadn't been ignored. She didn't acknowledge my feelings, but she put more of herself out there than she'd ever been willing to do previously. The question was, "What next?"

I paced the floors and spoke with friends. I wished I could have a friend call C for me, pretending to be me. I was frightened that I might be wounded even more harshly if she hung up on me or turned me away. I knew, however, that there was really no other choice than to call her myself, open myself up, and ask for the name of my father. I wanted to do so very soon, as well; I didn't want her to think that she'd succeeded in scaring me off or that I believed that I didn't belong. No way, not this woman. My time for sitting in the background was over. N offered to have me call from her house, while she held my hand, the following morning. There was no way I could sleep that night.

3 comments:

Susie said...

This makes me so sad.

Sad for you, that your mother hasn't loved you and welcomed you into her life. Sad, and angry, for everything that adoption continues to do to you.

Sad for your mom. That for whatever reason she cannot and/or will not embrace you into her life. That she does not see how she is hurting you, as well as herself.

Sad. For everyone. Every where. Who has been hurt by adoption.

Susie

Carlynne Hershberger, CPSA said...

Susie just said exactly what I want to say. I'm sad. I also now understand your comment on my blog post. Amazing how connected our two posts are - one from the daughter's perspective and one from a mother's.

As a natural mother I have a hard time understanding a mother who can't or won't be there with open arms for her child. It's what I dreamed of for 22 years. I'm sad that her pain and probably guilt has left her in such fear of you. I hope one day she'll be able to free herself and welcome you back.

juxtaposition said...

K,
I've often thought that as sad and heartwrenching my story is, a second rejection has got to be the most painful. I am so sad for you. For all adoptees whose mothers, for whatever reason, choose their own well-being over their children's. I can't fathom it, as a mother.
I know that we all wish our mothers were like the kind and decent human beings that we have had the pleasure of getting to know through our community. When I found out I wasn't a tragic case of being kidnapped from my mother, that this was a decision she made, most likely to keep the husband she had married four months before my birth, it stunned and rocked me to my core.
As horrible as it is for me to question: Is it better that she was already gone when I fially found her, than to go through the trauma you, and so many others go through with that rejection?
I'm heartbroken for you. Your words jump off the page, and just pierce my soul. I cry for you, I cry for your mother. I only hope that before it's too late, she can give you, at the very least, your answers you deserve. At the very most, that her heart will change; and you can live your life with some amount of peace.
Thank you for sharing your story. It's so hard to put it out there, but my thinking is that if you get it out, it doesn't stay inside, manifesting itself to do even more damage.
So much love sent from SC..
Rachel