That's exactly what I don't have. My connection to my history has been severed. There is no pile of photographs of ancestors to which I belong by blood that belongs to ME. I have seen some such photographs at A's house, but I was denied copies of them. I can only guess that my claim on them is suspect. I know it makes C uncomfortable to think of me as family. I can respect that, but artificial distance gouges into old wounds, and it hurts to know that my history is lost to me and to my children, grandchildren, and so on. What we have starts with me. I guess I am like Eve.
Meanwhile, my adad is merrily digitizing boxes and boxes of old photographs of his family and of my amom's. I love seeing them both as children; looking at their siblings, their cousins, and my grandparents. I see my aparents reflected over and over in the larger picture of their family. All of those photographs belong to me, although my father is sending the digital copies to my acousins. In truth, I feel I should give the hard copies to my cousins because it is THEIR heritage. The photographs are mine legally, of course, but my cousins' children and grandchildren will find meaning in the eyes and smiles and cheekbones of ancestors that Callum and Tobey won't. What belongs to me by legal right is given with open heart but doesn't fill the emptiness and desire for knowledge about these people whose blood runs in my veins. The people whom we do resemble. At least Callum takes after Mark's family and has that in his favor. Like Callum, like Mark, like Ludwig in 1915...
Perhaps more knowledge and photographs of my nfamily may come with time. But they may not, and my sons and I may have to come to terms with perhaps never knowing what my great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc., looked like. Because of my being that inconvenient child, meant to be erased and forgotten. Purged from the family tree. Never mentioned again.
It hurts, really hurts, when they say, "You have another family." Yes, I do. I am not disputing it. But having another family doesn't mean that adoption had no repercussions for me. That I simply traded one existence for another and morphed into another human being. Not possible.
A few months back I bought a book of narratives about family, some fictional some not. The editor chose to introduce it with a quotation from George Eliot's Adam Bede that is like another punch to the stomach today:
Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heartstrings to the beings that jar us at every moment.
My legacy is living with two families: one that I was born to and one that was made by adoption. The family that I was born to has a difficult time accepting me, for many reasons. That is a difficult burden for me to bear. I know it is difficult for them, as well, but I had hoped I'd find people as excited to get to know me as I am to know them. My expectations were shattered. My afamily loves me with all they have, but the one thing they cannot give is the thing I want the most. It is a cruel truth.
Yearning and repulsion? Yep. Jarred? Definitely.
Here's my adad's senior picture from high school. When I get lost in all of this crap, I remember how much I love him and my mom. They would go to the ends of the earth to help me if they could make a difference. You know what? My aparents are the only ones who have been there for me through it all. They're not perfect, but they put me first. ALWAYS. They don't whine about their shit. They don't make me take care of THEM. They act like PARENTS. And while I hate the pain of adoption, I am happy that the fucked up universe dropped me into their laps. I think about my dad telling me about their going to visit me that first day, and me being brought into the room, screaming my head off. They gave me a bottle, looked me over, and were asked, "Do you want to take her home?" My dad always cries at this point and says, "There was no way in hell they were taking you away from me!"
10 comments:
Your posts break my heart. I cannot fathom the rejection you must feel.
Please do not think that all birthfamilies are like yours.
You got a rotten deal. And it probably would have been a rotten deal if they would have raised you.
Some people just should not be allowed to have children. One of many injustices of life.
I glad to have your perspective as an adoptee. While it is awful for you, I hope that your experiences will be reflected upon by other birth and adoptive families so we, the adults of adoption, will never lose focus on the consequences the children pay.
My child's brithfather and I both have a heartfelt desire to be available to our daughter so she does not wonder where her blue eyes come from. Or why she loves music. Or if she looks like her siblings.
And even if we didn't have such a strong desire for relationship with her, it is still our responsibility. I am thankful I do not feel obligated, but instead my heart is so full of love for her that I cannot imagine not being there if she wants to have a relationship with us.
While legally she is someone else's daughter, she will always be one of us too. I want to make sure that we can at least make the complicated relationship of adoption as easy on her as possible.
Thank you for blogging and being real.
Lisa Anne: Thanks for your support. I know all too well that many natural families are nothing like mine. And that only rubs salt in my wound. I always thought I would find people just like myself, but I didn't.
It's heresy to say this, but you're right. I was probably "better off" being placed. My natural mother clearly wants little to do with me. The family at best thinks I am a curiosity, and at worst a leper. It's not fun. In an ideal world, however, I would never choose to be adopted. It sucks to have to negotiate the loss, no matter how much you're loved.
Your daughter will envy your sons, no matter what you tell her. The "what ifs" are brutal. There is no undoing what is done, and not all the love in the world can heal some wounds.
One of my Auncles traced his heritage back to 1540's Germany, went to the church and found his family name, he was so proud.
A friend of mine has great, great, great grand parent photos of her mom and both her husband's parents. It is comforting to her to have their photos in her home displayed proudly.
My Abrother has been working on his family tree, for some sort of bragging purposes I am sure.
Me? a few photos of me when they got me at 6 months old. And a faded yellow 1 page document from the state telling me my parents nationalities if it is even right.
I am green eyes and blond hair in a sea of brown hair and eyes. I am just coming out of the fog as I have heard the term used. Would not know how to look for an N family.Not sure I should
But regardless, the pain of not knowing who you are and your bloodlines, is beyond hell.
Thanks for your post. I have read your posts, never commented before, but this one struck a nerve, as it would for any of us who long to know about who we are and from where we come
I probably should have worded that statement about your natural parents more carefully. I would agree that I would never ever say that "you were better off" for being adopted into a different family.
I see adoption as a lesser of two evils from my position.
Both options involved loss for my daughter.
It just simply isn't fair to adoptees. You are given a great burden, no matter how 'perfect' your adoption and/or family is.
Just for the record, I am not adopted and I would not even be friends with my father if I were to meet him in a social setting. There is nothing 'wrong' with him, but we are categorically different. Crazy, ridiculous different.
I often wonder if I would believe he was my father if it weren't for the genetic similarities of features we share.
And oh yeah, maybe a bit of shared Attention Deficit Disorder, but doesn't everyone have a little bit of that anymore? lol
My dad also forgets birthdays (completely), and rarely ever calls. Well, I guess he and I might be the same in that sense. Because I never call him either, and quite honestly I don't even notice when he misses birthdays.
So even those of us who had intact families from birth have disfunction that we wear as a badge.
Family relationships are just complicated.
Touching, your story about your adad not letting you go. I am glad for that.
My aparents had to wait a week after meeting me to make sure they were sure, because I had some health problems.
I am sure my parents would have had to wait for me longer, except that I had already done my time in sick kid quarantine in the NICU to make sure that I was healthy and adoptable. C could have told them that I'd be fine; hereditary spherocytosis only sounds scary to those who don't know about it. It bears watching, but it's nothing to write home about. Sad that we are product who needs to be vetted and deemed worthy of sale before being purchased. I often wonder where I would have ended up if I hadn't been "adoptable." The foster system?
"Family relationships are just complicated."
Thanks LisaAnne for that bit of wisdom. Most of us adoptees aren't aware of that because our family relationships were severed by our mothers when they gave us to strangers.
Mari,
I am sorry if words I used were insensitive.
You see, I am just human, not perfect.
I did not choose adoptive parents for my child because I didn't want her. I did not choose adoption because it was more convenient. I did not want to sever family ties with her at all. I thought I was choosing a relationship that would allow my daughter to still know all of us, even if we were not parenting her. I did not know that it wouldn't work out like I had hoped.
At the time that I made it, I felt the adoption decision was in the best interest of my child.
I did not know all the ramiifications that decision would have on everyone involved. I only saw the good that I thought would come from providing my daughter with a family who had so much to offer.
But I can't take it back now. The decision is made.
All I can do now is try not to be like the natural parents that cause adoptees such heartbreak.
I will fight for a relationship with my daughter until I can have one. I will do everything in my power to lessen the pain of loss for her.
If I could sccop her up and bring her back into my family I would. But I can't. So I have to work with the family she does have to try to create an environment where our daughter does not have to feel complete rejection.
I appreciate hearing from adoptees. It helps me recognize how I can be more sensitive to my daughter and feelings she may experience some day.
But I know I will say wrong things some time. Because I am ignorant. I was not adopted. I don't know what things might trigger negative feelings.
I apologize if I unintentionally upset you with that statement. It was just meant to be all encompassing.
LisaAnne, the unfortunate truth is that what an adopted baby experiences first in their world is abandonment by their natural mother and that leaves very deep and very particular lifelong scars. It's all very well and good to point out that natural families have dysfunction too, that children don't always get along with both parents, but unless you have experienced being severed from your entire natural family and being handed to strangers, you just cannot know how it feels. Speculating and telling adoptees that they shouldn't feel a certain way because everyone else has certain aspects of their life that suck is actually really condescending and dismissive of our experience.
I know you want to think that you did the best thing for your daughter but frankly if you had taken a little time to read about the experiences of adoptees and natural parents before giving her away, you would have realised that maybe, just maybe, you were thinking more about yourself than about her. And now your decision is haunting you and believe me, it will haunt her too, regardless of how embedded you become in her life later.
It seems like you want to learn about the experience of adoptees and I don't want to stop you, in fact I encourage you to read some of the blogs that ms. marginalia subscribes to so that you can educate yourself even more. It would probably be better though if you just didn't comment because most adoptees have a thing about being told that they were better off by someone who has abandoned their child.
LisaAnne, I really appreciate that you're trying to understand things from the point of view of adoptees. But honestly, some of what you say has been very hurtful.
I am 42 years old. I have two families. I am well educated with multiple advanced degrees. If you read my blog, you'll see that I don't go around making blanket statements about anything adoption related. I KNOW that not all natural families are alike. I KNOW that all families have problems.
I am blogging about MYSELF. I have two families. I have many friends with many families. No family is perfect, and yet adoption adds another layer of complication to already existing problems.
When you say that you have conflict with your father, I am sure that you do. I am sure that he forgets your birthday, and that would suck. Problem is, you have known him all your life, you know who he is and your relationship to him, and you have come to terms with how to handle this.
I have NEVER had the chance to get to know my natural family in this way. I don't even KNOW who my natural father IS! How can you begin to compare your situation to mine?
As far as my birthday goes, I think you've misunderstood my message. At 42, birthdays are not a big deal to me in general.
HOWEVER, my birthday was ALSO the day my natural mother gave me up. It was the very last day we were together. 42 LONG years ago now. So in terms of my natural family, my birthday signifies something ENTIRELY different from what I think you had in mind when you commented about your father forgetting yours. Your birthday doesn't have dark undertones of loss painted onto it.
I have only been in reunion with my brother for about 21 months, and I have only been speaking on and off with my natural mother for six months and a bit, after TWELVE years of her ignoring me. She had asked about my birthday in early April, and I thought that perhaps this year April 27 would be a day of healing: I could connect with my natural family on the anniversary of day when my ties to them were severed. When that day came and went with silence, it hurt terribly. It wasn't about gifts, it wasn't about being the center of attention. It was about mattering to the people who had cast me away. Fail.
Not all situations are alike, as you have said, and drawing parallels can be poisonous and hurtful.
Post a Comment