Running to my Roots, Part Two

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adoptee, adoption, birthfather, cultural heritage, family, healing, Italy, reunion

As an adult adoptee looking back, one of my regrets was not growing up with my Italian heritage. In my recent memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption, I lamented this “deprivation.” However, I DID meet my Italian-American birthfather. I was able to travel with him to Abruzzo, where he was born. It was to be the last time I saw him, as he passed away shortly after our return. This is the second part of my essay about our trip to Italy…

My relatives in Abruzzo welcomed me, their American cousin

I ran every morning of our two-week stay in San Martino Sulla Marrucina. The miles melted away. Propelled by fascinating sights, smells, sounds and sensations, I was hardly aware of moving. I glided by the town’s gothic style cathedral, the tobacco shop, the nursery school, multistoried buildings with flower-laden balconies, graceful patios, tiny cats peeking from doorways, sheep, chickens, olive trees and grapevines. The town’s dogs barked and lunged as I ran by. Lucky for me, they were chained or fenced in. By the third day, I thought I’d run every cobblestone street and traversed every steep, narrow alleyway.
But I was wrong. One of my rewarding outings came about as a result of a funeral. A village dignitary had died, and I was invited by my cousins to join a procession to the “camposanto.” Thus on this morning, I walked rather than ran. The entire population of San Martino had joined in the solemn on-foot parade to the final laying-to-rest of the deceased. After interment, my cousin Carlo pointed out many tombs that contained his (and my own) late kinsfolk. All the while, I made mental notes of possible new running sites. I discovered a narrow path, just beyond the village proper, that descended to a lovely valley and forest.
After the funeral and from then on, this path was my favorite running destination. I went from my aunt’s house to the “camposanto” to pay respects to anyone who might have been related, however distantly, to me. That accomplished, I explored the paths beyond. In the marvelous way that running has of leading us to we don’t know where, I powered my way up small roads through cultivated fields and olive groves. During several forays, I rambled through dense forests, each time discovering something new.
One day, I spotted a garden plot of red chile peppers that looked just like those of my native New Mexico. Another time, I spotted a prickly ball along the road, a small animal something like a round porcupine. Was it dead or just hibernating? When I returned, cousin Carlo told me, “These animals are very useful. They kill garden pests and are also good to eat.” When they feel threatened, he added, they curl themselves up into balls.
A week before the end of my Italian sojourn, the weather turned colder. Until now, it had been summer. The sky became moody and the moist air promised rain and the coming winter. On one of my final runs in Italy, I took along a bag and collected fallen autumn leaves to press and take back to America.
On my next-to-last day in San Martino, I ran through town, passing my favorite little lady and her three cats, the post office,the tobacco shop. Just as I was heading back to my aunt’s house, Carlo and his wife Bianca drove up beside me, stopped their car and invited me to go shopping with them. When we reached the town of Guardiagrelee, it became obvious that their mission was to buy presents for me — handmade lace, a brass oil lamp, pottery, a cookbook written in English and Italian.
The day of my departure, I took a predawn farewell run, and then it was time to return to Rome and the United States. My wish to meet with the dad I’d never known had been granted, at least partially. So much time had passed, “water under the bridge” my father called it, that we might never become closely bonded father and daughter. However, sharing San Martino with my father was precious beyond words. Miles of running through his village enriched my memory bank forever.

Discovering my birth father’s homeland expanded my horizons!

A Gift to You – The 12 Days of Adoption

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adoptee, adoption, celebrate, discover, family, friends, Holidays, Self-Empowerment, wounded, writing

NOTE: Those of you who’ve been following my blog, welcome back. Greetings to new readers. Winter finds me (at last) finishing a long-in-development sequel to All the Wrong Places. Enjoy one of my favorite posts from the pasts, as I work today on editing Clara and The Hand of Ganesh. Being thankful is a strong motivator, I have learned, in this lonely process of writing. Below, a song of gratitude. Adoption is a mixed blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. Here’s wishing you and yours a beautiful holiday season!

Love and Blessings, Elaine

******

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on life through adoption colored glasses. Please let us know what you’re most grateful for this holiday season!

Enjoying winter outdoors is a gift.

 

A Gift to You – The 12 Days of Adoption

Tags

adoptee, adoption, celebrate, Christmas, discover, family, friends, Holidays, wounded, writing

I was adopted at age five. That event shaped the rest of my life. It’s made me who I am. Adoption, it’s been said, is both a blessing and a curse. For me. it’s a blessing. In this late December post, the last of 2020, I count the ways.

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An Adoptee’s Song:
“The Twelve Gifts of Adoption”

With the holiday season upon us, Hannakah past and Christmas around the corner, music fills the air. From our devices, television or radio, we often hear “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In your imagination, listen to the melody… then read with an open heart as this ADOPTEE offers a different take on a familiar song…

******

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on life through adoption colored glasses. Please let us know what you’re most grateful for this holiday season!

Snowshoeing is a great way to celebrate the Winter Solstice

The Pendulum Swings – Adoption comes Full Circle

Tags

adoptee, adoption, celebrity, celebrity adoption, diary, DNA, family, international adoption, orphans, parents, public, roots, struggles

Hollywood Adoption: Photo found on yahoo.com

When I was adopted at the end of WWII, it was top secret. A stigma, at least in my adoptive parents’ circle, was attached to not being able to give birth to your own children. Adoption was considered a last resort. It was invisible. In large measure because of celebrity adoptions, nowadays adoption has gone public. It is seen as a viable way of forming a family. In sharp contrast to the era during which I was adopted, people who adopt children are more likely to be admired than spurned.

Celebrity adoptions have helped transform attitudes toward adoption. Magazines and newspapers feature photographs of movie stars holding adopted children. Often these little ones were adopted internationally.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for example, have several children of their own and three from other countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam). Madonna’s tots are from Malawi. Sandra Bullock and Charlize Theron are recent Hollywood adoptive moms.

There are 145 million orphans in the world today, boys and girls who will have to grow up without the love and guidance of parents. Any situation which allows even one of these children to gain a family is a victory, a triumph, a cause for celebration. Celebrity adoptions call attention to the option, when a couple or single parent cannot or chooses not to have children in a traditional way, of “the adoption solution.”

In The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I relate that my birth father Giovanni was born in Italy and tell how it cut off I felt from my Italian-American heritage. Years after being adopted, I traveled to San Martino Sulla Marricino, Italy with my birthfather. I saw the house where he was born. I met aunts, uncles and cousins who welcomed me—the American cousin—with open arms. I was filled with joy at meeting people who were “blood relatives,” people with the same DNA. I felt very much at home and at the time wanted to live in that little Italian village forever.

How much was I hurt by not being in touch with my roots all along?

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and sneak previews of her newest novel, The Hand of Ganesa.

Until I became a teenager, the answer is not very much. When, at about age 15 or 16, I pondered  the question of “nature versus nurture,” I was troubled by the lack of knowledge about my heritage. I felt disenfranchised (though at the time I would not have called it that). Despitethe fact that my new adoptive parents were loving and gave me every advantage, I felt deprived.  I had been cheated of “the back story.” I strongly urge adoptive parents to provide that “back story”: how he or she came to be adopted and as much as possible about the child’s original parents. Obviously, all of this should be presented truthfully but positively. It requires great care and sensitivity on the part of the parents.

The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries gives readers a case history of adoption’s effects and dramatizes my journey of recovery.  Through actual diary entries from the 1950s through the 1980s, it proves how awareness can provide the path to a healthy shift in attitude. The diaries give personal history a living voice in a way that remembrance never can.

My Diary is my Best Friend

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, best friend, blended families, diary, discover, empower, family, my story, national adoption month, separation, wounded

After being adopted by a college professor and his wife, I received a diary for Christmas. It was a gift that changed my life. Because my new family avoided discussing or even mentioning “adoption,” I felt that  I could be authentic only in my daily journal writing.

From the first five-year diary with a lock and key, 1950s style, to the blank books I fill today, I record exuberant or dismal thoughts,  poetic or melancholy reflections, and events both quotidian and dramatic. My happiest moments, the dark nights of my soul, commentary on family, the weather, current events —all of it is grist for the mill. Book after book, the diaries run like a turbulent river through my six decades.

Eight years ago I read through journals from my past and wrote a memoir about growing up adopted.

Who would ever read all these written chronicles after I was gone? Unable to answer that question, I appointed Elaine as reader. What my diaries said about me was that I really did not like myself. Throughout school years, I judged nearly everything that happened as not measuring up.

Some examples from 1956:

April 5—I felt sort of depressed and inferior at school today.

April 27—School dance. I had flowers on my headband and a pretty blue formal. The dance was a big disappointment. I had a miserable time.

May 26—Went to cheerleading practice. I’m not very good and I know I won’t be chosen.

In 1960, I wrote that February was a particularly low month. I was arguing with my parents and fighting bitterly with my brother.

In 1961, my situation had gone from bad to worse. An entry dated June 10: “Upsetting evening with the family. Because I failed to give a message to Daddy, my brother almost got lost or something and it was all my fault. Daddy couldn’t find him. Everyone got mad at me. Mother was furious—very enraged. What a horrible night. I hate family life.

Marriage seemed to offer an escape, so by 1966 I had become the wife of Jack, my college sweetheart. However, I took my unhappiness with me. As demonstrated in these entries from 1977, my sense of abandonment had intensified:

January 1—Jack stayed glued to TV football. Nothing the children or I did made a dent. He watched without pause from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. I felt very angry, helpless. And yet, I was too exhausted to pursue a constructive discussion.

January 5—I hate being alone in the house. I feel desperate when there is a blank wall of non-communication. I hate the feeling that I can bleed inwardly, that I can be melted by despair, and Jack doesn’t notice, doesn’t see, doesn’t care.

January 9—Jack and I had another non-conversation, very unproductive. I am filled with anger and despair. I would like to wake up single.

Three years later, I was single but with two young sons. What followed, as reported in more written chronicles, were more failed relationships. My unhappiness lay within; I was afraid the become close to a partner. My original mother’s departure taught me that if you love someone, he or she will leave you.

Fast forward to the 1990s,  some twenty years later. As I re-read my diaries, I realized that I had assured the failure of any prospective romances or partnerships. What the younger me taught the older me is to beware of assumptions. The idea that I could never be good enough tainted even the sweetest successes and accomplishments. In so many ways, I was my own worst enemy.

My negative interpretations so overwhelmed me that at last, I had to look them in the face, recognize them for what they were, and decide that I was not a robot. No one was making me think the self-depreciating thoughts.

—————

The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries depicts my journey from victim to heroine of my own life. It is a book that offers hope not only to adult adoptees trying to heal adoption-imposed injuries, but to parents who are dealing with the invisible wounds of their adopted children. It is the kind of book that would have helped me when I was growing up adopted. Since that book didn’t exist, I wrote it myself. 

Adoption is both a curse and a blessing. My memoir chronicles a journey from doubt to acceptance.

Adoption Wrapped in a Pretty Bow

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, blended families, Christmas, diary, discover, empower, family, friends, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month

Note from Elaine: I have two books coming out in 2016!: the “remodeled” Santa Fe on Foot and a suspense novel, All the Wrong Places. Because of current writing demands, therefore, my blogging has temporarily taken a back seat. Hope you enjoy this republished but timely message. Wishing all adoptees an especially fulfilling holiday!

For Adoptees, the holidays can be tough. Not only for young adopted children, but  also for adult adoptees. During Christmas and Hannukah season, we are supposed to be happy, filled with joy, relishing family reunions. Tis “the season to be jolly,” fa-la-la-la-la-ing” as we frantically strive to find the perfect gift for every last person on the list.

As described in my memoir, The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I was five when my birth mom relinquished me. For all of November—National Adoption Awareness Month—I’ve focussed on my own adoption. It’s been an awakening, and not always a happy one. Though striving mightily to make this a good holiday for my own grown children and their families, I suffer from an all too familiar ache of incompleteness. We adult adoptees can become “orphans” all over again.

I’ve lost all my parents, both biological and adoptive. My birth parents: They could not have raised me and my brother, and yet I would have liked to have known them earlier in life. When I finally met them, it was too late for us to really form a relationship. Those wonderful people, the mom and dad who raised me: I feel an even keener sense of emptiness at their deaths.

To better explain why the holidays present this adoptee with a sense of deprivation, allow me to quote from The Goodbye Baby:

***

ABOUT EDGAR

Whenever I think I have finally been healed from the wounds of adoption, life serves up a reminder that I am not. It is the opposite of “looking through rose-colored glasses.” When one looks through the glasses of being adopted, everyday events are reminders of loss, betrayal, or abandonment. Through reading all my diaries, I became very aware of the unremitting prevalence of “adoption bruises.”

Elaine’s tribute to her Adoptive Parents

There are metaphors I find helpful in understanding the wounds of my adoption, including disease and death at sea. When troubled by having grown up as an adopted child, I let insecurity and self-doubt take root. Reason eludes me. I have given that negative emotional state a name—Edgar. Like burning flames, Edgar is fueled by his own energy. Like fire, he feeds on everything, which he transforms into negative thoughts about my past, present, future. Edgar is a demonic artist who paints the world in stark tones of black and gray. Like a disease, Edgar undermines my physical well-being.  Edgar lurks, waiting to arise when I am feeling healthy and balanced. When my spirit starts to wane, he is poised for the kill.

Edgar is always keeping score. His message to me: To be considered worthy of living, I have to prove myself “good” every day. If I do not, I might, metaphorically speaking, be sent to an orphanage. Never mind that I lived in foster care for only the first few years of my life. No matter that I should be well over the feelings of abandonment from that difficult beginning.

Fire burns everything in its path. Self-destructive memories add to Edgar’s growing stockpile of ammunition. Edgar thrives on drama and misfortune, not just mine, but the world’s… Disappointment appears and then malaise sets in, a pervasive feeling of things being awry. My stomach feels queasy, my shoulders ache, and my limbs are leaden. Uh oh. Here’s Edgar, I think to myself.”

If only Christmas were a holiday one could celebrate quietly and thoughtfully, I would be happier. That is not going to happen, so I’ve taken responsibility for making this season rich and fulfilling.

Loss, want, privation and melancholy are NOT what I want to give myself for Christmas.

I am taking the holidays as a time to deepen and renew friendships. Every day I will focus on self-care, spending time in nature, drinking more water and beginning each day with a morning stretch and hug. As a friend recommended, I will stretch my arms and legs, sit up and notice that I am breathing. For three or four breaths, I will simply pay attention, breathing in and breathing out. I will give myself a hug, saying “Good morning, Elaine, thanks for taking a minute to just be. Let today be about learning to love—myself and others”

Acknowledging my adoption as a gift

Embracing my adoption is a way of nurturing myself. This year, the holidays will be different. After putting “Edgar” into an escape-proof cage, I will wrap my adoption insights in a beautiful gift box. Knowing and accepting my adopted self is the greatest gift. When I do this, I have more to give family and friends.

***

Some questions for my readers:

Why do you personally think Adopted children find it more difficult to enjoy the Holidays?

Do you remember struggling with your own Adoption when Christmas/Thanksgiving rolled around?

Do you ever remember your parents trying to help you deal with this?

What do the Holidays mean to you?

How do you reflect on your adoption during the Holidays?

A Reunion too Late, or… the Gift of Relatives

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, birthfather, family, Italy, Personal history, Searching

Note: Just back from a river cruise on the Elbe River, through the Czech Republic, Saxony and Germany. My apologies for publishing a so-called “Monday Blog” on Wednesday. It is the first time in two years of blogging that I’ve missed a deadline. Traveling in Europe without a computer was not conducive to being punctual, but I’m hoping this belated post will provide food for thought, especially for adoptees who’ve either had or are hoping to have reunions with their parents of origin.
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Jane, adopted at ten months, met her birthparents as an adult. Decades later, she and her original mom had a reunion. It was a great success. Predictably, one of the best aspects of the reunion was learning about her German roots. She greatly enjoyed getting to know her mother, a first generation immigrant. As she told me about the event, my spirits drooped. A success, I thought, as I enviously listened.

To be honest, reunions with both my birthparents, who divorced shortly after I was Note: I am just back from a river cruise on the Elbe River, through the Czech Republic, Saxony and Germany. My apologies for publishing a so-called “Monday Blog” on Wednesday. It is the first time in two years of blogging that I’ve missed a deadline. Traveling in Europe without a computer was not conducive to being punctual, but I’m hoping this belated post will provide food for thought, especially for adoptees who’ve either had or are hoping to have reunions with their parents of origin.
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Jane, adopted at ten months, met her birthparents as an adult. Decades later, she and her original mom had a reunion. It was a great success. Predictably, one of the best aspects of the reunion was learning about her German roots. She greatly enjoyed getting to know her mother, a first generation immigrant. As she told me about the event, my spirits drooped. A success, I thought, as I enviously listened.

To be honest, reunions with both my birthparents, who divorced shortly after I was born, were less than victorious. In the case of Giovanni Cecchini, my Italian birthfather, expectations were great. The year was 1987, and Giovanni was planning to visit his birthplace, San Martino Sulla Marrucina in Abruzzo, Italy. I had seen him once in my life, during my teen years, and I had a positive relationship with his new wife Margaret.

Because Giovanni was in frail health, Margaret and I decided that it would be a good

Abruzzi, Italy is the birthplace of my original dad. Many relatives still live there.

idea for me to accompany him to Europe. Not only did I want to meet my Italian relatives, I hoped for a deeper relationship with my father. This trip might provide a chance to learn more about Velma, my birthmother, and the circumstances of my adoption.

However, it was a miss. Too much time had apparently loosened any potential bonds. Giovanni was moody, out of sorts, and taciturn. He was far warmer toward his two little nieces, ages nine and ten, than to me, his own flesh and blood. That part was a tremendous let-down.

There we were in Italy, the “old country,” surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone lived in close proximity. It was November and mornings were very cold.

We’re sitting in front of a blazing fireplace and I asked my father to tell me what my mother was like when he first met her.

“To tell the truth,” he grumpily responded, “You remind me of her.” Nothing else, just that. I could tell that it wasn’t a compliment. I waited for clarification, elaboration, a modifying remark…anything. Nothing but silence.

After the visit to Italy, Giovanni and I were interviewed by a newspaper about our reunion and journey to Italy. He told the reporter that in his opinion, there had been “too much water under the bridge.”

On the bright side, my Italian relatives—who’d known nothing about me—surrounded me with love. They seemed thrilled to know about their newfound American cousin. So, while I envied Jane and her successful birth family reunion, I treasured the fact that I got to know my extended Italian family. I cherish the memories more as years go by. born, were less than victorious. In the case of Giovanni Cecchini, my Italian birthfather, expectations were great. The year was 1987, and Giovanni was planning to visit his birthplace, San Martino Sulla Marrucina in Abruzzo, Italy. I had seen him once in my life, during my teen years, and I had a positive relationship with his new wife Margaret.

Because Giovanni was in frail health, Margaret and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to accompany him to Europe. Not only did I want to meet my Italian relatives, I hoped for a deeper relationship with my father. This trip might provide a chance to learn more about Velma, my birthmother, and the circumstances of my adoption.

However, it was a miss. Too much time had apparently loosened any potential bonds. Giovanni was moody, out of sorts, and taciturn. He was far warmer toward his two little nieces, ages nine and ten, than to me, his own flesh and blood. That part was a tremendous let-down.

There we were in Italy, the “old country,” surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone lived in close proximity. It was November and mornings were very cold.

We’re sitting in front of a blazing fireplace and I asked my father to tell me what my mother was like when he first met her.

“To tell the truth,” he grumpily responded, “You remind me of her.” Nothing else, just that. I could tell that it wasn’t a compliment. I waited for clarification, elaboration, a modifying remark…anything. Nothing but silence.

After the visit to Italy, Giovanni and I were interviewed by a newspaper about our reunion and journey to Italy. He told the reporter that in his opinion, there had been “too much water under the bridge.”

On the bright side, my Italian relatives—who’d known nothing about me—surrounded me with love. They seemed thrilled to know about their newfound American cousin. So, while I envied Jane and her successful birth family reunion, I treasured the fact that I got to know my extended Italian family. I cherish the memories more as years go by.

Join Elaine every other Monday for reflections on adoption and life.

Postcards from the Ledge

Tags

adoptee, Adoption recovery, aging, Attitude adjustment, C.G. Jung, discover, empower, family, Hiking, Monte Sol in Santa Fe, Rowing, The Privilege of Aging, The Transition Network

Dear Readers, I am still writing  about adoption-related issues. For this week, however, I’m venturing into another “A” word–>AGE! Not a popular topic here in

Monte Sol gives “old as the hills” new meaning

the Blogosphere, but nonetheless, I’m tackling it.
I’m lucky enough to live right across the road from a hiker-friendly foothill of the Rocky Mountains, Sun Mountain, or as it’s dubbed by the locals, “Monte Sol.” In fact, I am just back from a morning hike with my older son, who’s here visiting for a few weeks.    That is, we started out together.  As I was rounding the last switchback before the summit’s flat viewing area, my son strolled over to me as though he’d been waiting for a bit. For him, Monte Sol was the mere beginning of a trifecta hike.
We stood at the windy overlook and briefly discussed the possibilities. Even though my son urged me to continue with him to “Monte Luna” (Moon Mountain), I told him that I was happy to master just the first peak.
“Another time for Luna, ” I suggested. That was fine with him, and he

Join me every week for reflections on adoption and life!

took off down into the rocky gulch that led to another steep ascent. He disappeared into the pinon-lined canyon while I ambled solo down Monte Sol. I’d walked at top speed going up. Going down, I took time to enjoy views and reflect on the difference between our generations.
I do not feel “old,” but I am now older than I could ever have imagined being. Because I’m enjoying what Swiss psychotherapist C. G. Jung called the “afternoon” of life, it seems that my powers of adaptation have increased even as physical capabilities have diminished. When I was half my age, I ran marathons. Now I walk up Monte Sol, and that is enough.
Everyone we know—including ourselves— will someday be old-ER, or even (gasp) really OLD.  It’s not really cause for lament but rather for celebration. A reminder: not everyone reaches the “privilege of aging,” to quote the title of my friend Patricia Shapiro’s excellent book (The Privilege of Aging: Portraits of Twelve Jewish Women).
Perhaps because I have grown more accepting of my adoptee status, life seems to be offering many opportunities to reflect on this phenomenon of growing older.
I can’t help but notice that some friends who are considerably younger than I am are passing away, and it hurts. Each loss of a friend or loved one nibbles away, reminders of mortality.
Recently I attended an excellent discussion group hosted by The Transition Network. It comprised women, some of whom were in their fifties, others in their 60s and 70s.  The evening began with a writing session during which we were to imagine ourselves at age 80. After writing for 20 minutes, we shared our thoughts.
Nearly everyone in the group imagined themselves as healthy and mentally active. Other visions of being eighty included always learning and challenging the mind, being a good friend and having friends of all ages, making the choice to be happy, being unafraid of the advancing numbers.
One woman shared her experience of being on a rowing team in college, training every day no matter what the weather was up to. Most days of rowing training, she said, ranged from pleasant to difficult but some were nearly impossible. She related the challenges of rowing on days when wind howled and rain pelted, and she recalled the words of her coach. “Just keep rowing — no matter what.”
Be it gently rowing down the stream, toiling upstream, or just rowing through, perseverance and adaptation are keys to enjoying life’s passages. In dealing with both adoption and aging, it is best to simply “Row, row, row your boat…”

Being Adopted Meant Being Rescued

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adoptee, adoption, adoption child, blended families, diary, discover, empower, family, my story, national adoption month, New Mexico, orphans, parents, separation, struggles, wounded

Note to readers: My website was born a year ago this month, and this post was my first. I’m recovering from dental surgery—a bit under the weather— so rather than a Blog-less Monday, I decided to re-publish. Please forgive the redundancy!

A popular definition:

“Adoption offers a solution for children who, for whatever reason, cannot grow up with their biological parents. Adoption can be the answer for infertile parents.”

I was adopted at age five.

For me, being adopted was being rescued from a bad situation.

Me (Elaine) with my birth mother, Velma.

Born to an ill-matched couple during the final years of WWII, you might say I was a “Goodbye Baby.” My birth mother, abandoned by her sailor husband, was not capable of mothering two young children. She did what adult children have done in every era when there is no place else to go: she went back to live with her parents. From staying with her husband’s family in Massachusetts, she fled to her home state of Iowa. Her idea was to earn her teaching credentials and somehow make her own way in the world.

There was no day care back then. As much as my birth mother could not abide Giovanni Cecchini’s family, neither could she stand living with her austere German family. She enrolled in college and my brother and I were shuffled about, staying first with abusive “cousins” and then in foster care. When my future adoptive parents came along, my life changed for the better. Instead of being a burden, I was now a chosen daughter. I was born again!

The dreary past, however, stayed within me. In the years after WWII, there was much to get beyond. My adoptive parents mistakenly believed that if they didn’t talk about the abuse I’d suffered and the instability of my birth mother.

I would stop wondering about the past. The opposite happened. In lieu of facts, I invented. Why was I adopted and not one of the “real” children”? How could I find answers?

Enter my diaries: Personal journals, four decades of small books filled with written accounts of every day of my life from 1950-1980. I started reading about the past to learn how being adopted had become such an emotional burden, how it had become a dark shadow tainting my formative years. The journey took me to unexpected enlightenment.

Now my attitude toward adoption is far broader and more inclusive. I’m able to adopt a new attitude, to adopt the deer that come to my back yard every day to feed on apples fallen from my prolific backyard tree. Above all, I have literally “adopted” Elaine. I came to the same conclusion as Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”

Adopted or not, isn’t life’s journey about becoming oneself?

Running to my Roots, Part Two

Tags

adoptee, adoption, birthfather, cultural heritage, family, healing, Italy, reunion

As an adult adoptee looking back, one of my regrets was not growing up with my Italian heritage. In my recent memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption, I lamented this “deprivation.” However, I DID meet my Italian-American birthfather. I was able to travel with him to Abruzzo, where he was born. It was to be the last time I saw him, as he passed away shortly after our return. This is the second part of my essay about our trip to Italy…

My relatives in Abruzzo welcomed me, their American cousin

I ran every morning of our two-week stay in San Martino Sulla Marrucina. The miles melted away. Propelled by fascinating sights, smells, sounds and sensations, I was hardly aware of moving. I glided by the town’s gothic style cathedral, the tobacco shop, the nursery school, multistoried buildings with flower-laden balconies, graceful patios, tiny cats peeking from doorways, sheep, chickens, olive trees and grapevines. The town’s dogs barked and lunged as I ran by. Lucky for me, they were chained or fenced in. By the third day, I thought I’d run every cobblestone street and traversed every steep, narrow alleyway.
But I was wrong. One of my rewarding outings came about as a result of a funeral. A village dignitary had died, and I was invited by my cousins to join a procession to the “camposanto.” Thus on this morning, I walked rather than ran. The entire population of San Martino had joined in the solemn on-foot parade to the final laying-to-rest of the deceased. After interment, my cousin Carlo pointed out many tombs that contained his (and my own) late kinsfolk. All the while, I made mental notes of possible new running sites. I discovered a narrow path, just beyond the village proper, that descended to a lovely valley and forest.
After the funeral and from then on, this path was my favorite running destination. I went from my aunt’s house to the “camposanto” to pay respects to anyone who might have been related, however distantly, to me. That accomplished, I explored the paths beyond. In the marvelous way that running has of leading us to we don’t know where, I powered my way up small roads through cultivated fields and olive groves. During several forays, I rambled through dense forests, each time discovering something new.
One day, I spotted a garden plot of red chile peppers that looked just like those of my native New Mexico. Another time, I spotted a prickly ball along the road, a small animal something like a round porcupine. Was it dead or just hibernating? When I returned, cousin Carlo told me, “These animals are very useful. They kill garden pests and are also good to eat.” When they feel threatened, he added, they curl themselves up into balls.
A week before the end of my Italian sojourn, the weather turned colder. Until now, it had been summer. The sky became moody and the moist air promised rain and the coming winter. On one of my final runs in Italy, I took along a bag and collected fallen autumn leaves to press and take back to America.
On my next-to-last day in San Martino, I ran through town, passing my favorite little lady and her three cats, the post office,the tobacco shop. Just as I was heading back to my aunt’s house, Carlo and his wife Bianca drove up beside me, stopped their car and invited me to go shopping with them. When we reached the town of Guardiagrelee, it became obvious that their mission was to buy presents for me — handmade lace, a brass oil lamp, pottery, a cookbook written in English and Italian.
The day of my departure, I took a predawn farewell run, and then it was time to return to Rome and the United States. My wish to meet with the dad I’d never known had been granted, at least partially. So much time had passed, “water under the bridge” my father called it, that we might never become closely bonded father and daughter. However, sharing San Martino with my father was precious beyond words. Miles of running through his village enriched my memory bank forever.

Discovering my birth father’s homeland expanded my horizons!