The Dad I Scarcely Knew

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Italy, reunion, separation

Note: Adopted people have two fathers: the original and the adoptive. On Father’s Day I thought about Giovanni Cecchini, the original, all day. Lately, as I massively declutter, I’ve come across albums with photos of my original father and me the few times we met. I’ve come to realize that Giovanni, my original father, did the best he could.

The stated mission of my memoir The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries is to “let the past be the past.” In my concluding essays, I suggested that “bygones should be bygones.” Since the publication of The Goodbye Baby, I’ve had second thoughts about those “bygones.” In the case of understanding ones adoption, the “bygones” adage may not be entirely true. History has been coming back to me, and I’m seeing things differently.
During this season of Father’s Day and the upcoming Summer Solstice, I’m thinking a lot about Giovanni Cecchini, my birth father. These are not comfortable thoughts, but rather regrets and self-recriminations. My birth father and I were never really together, as WWII was raging when I was a toddler. He was always out at sea, and the ill-fated marriage between Giovanni and my birth mother Velma was unraveling even as it was just beginning.

At age five, I was adopted by new parents. My adoptive father Richard, until his death a decade ago, was a major influence throughout my life. A professor of guidance and counseling at the University of Virginia, he was my advocate and hero. I deeply admired him. Giovanni was a shadowy background player, someone I saw just a few times in my life

The occasions I saw that original Dad, I was so full of hurt and resentment that I blew it. After we’d made contact (I was 40; he was 75), I accompanied Giovanni to his birthplace, San Martino Sulla Marruccina, Abruzzo, Italy. We stayed with my aunt and third cousins, my own flesh and blood. I was thrilled to be in Italy, in the land of my father’s birth, and I was hoping that we could get to know each other. I expected him to be the father I’d always been missing. It became obvious that he was hoping to see the four-year-old little girl he’d left behind.

We were sitting one morning at the tiny kitchen table of Cousin Josephina and I asked, “What are your memories of my mother, of Velma?” Giovanni replied, “Well, to tell the truth, you kind of remind me of her.” Retreating into a curmudgeonly silence, he did not elaborate.

I took the remark as a slap in the face. I was hurt beyond words. Father/daughter interactions went downhill from there. The Italian cousins were delightful. It was wonderful meeting them, but the father I’d hoped to bond with eluded me. He put it this way. “Too much water under the bridge.” I did not see him after our trip to the old country and he passed away a few years later.

In retrospect, I would change that moment at the kitchen table in Abruzzi. I might have changed the subject, been more open and loving, transcended my “poor little me” attitude. And if only I had. In the case of these fragile reunions with birth parents, there may not be second chances. A saving grace is the relationship I have with Giovanni’s second wife Margaret. Family members, no matter how distant or difficult, are to be cherished.

(This post was originally issued in 2013.)

Your feedback in invited. Please comment, and join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on life as seen through adoption-colored glasses.

Advertisements

Adoption: Still my “Something”

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, discover, empower, healing, separation, wounded

Note from Elaine: I continue to write adoption stories. Clara Jordan, heroine of my recent suspense novel All the Wrong Places, travels from Virginia to New Mexico hoping to locate an unknown birthmother. Instead of finding roots, she falls in love with a two-timer named Henry, a sly character who betrays her. She runs further into trouble as she searches petroglyphs for traces of a mother she’s never known. All the Wrong Places is available from http://www.pocolpress.com or from Amazon. My novel-in-progress, Clara and the Hand of Ganesha, takes our protagonist to the shore temple of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, India. Participating in NaNoWriMo, I plan to finish the first draft this month. Stay tuned!

 

*******************************************************************

It’s been said that trauma is not a mystery, that it attaches itself to you in a way that’s hard to undo. My story, as related in The Goodbye Baby, offers living proof. Being an adoptee has added melodrama to my life, created a passion for writing, and ultimately inspired me to take off the masks and to discover who I really am.

Though I was fortunate enough to land in an adoptive family who loved and cherished me, it could not make up for losing that first “mother connection.” My birth mother and I said goodbye before I started first grade, and I waited 38 years for her to come back into my life. I was deeply wounded by the separation.

My struggles have been with feeling abandoned, isolated, and rejected. I’ve worried for years that I will be misunderstood and that I’m simply not good enough- as a daughter, a friend, a partner, a mother, or even as a human being.

With my infant son in Greece

Because of being adopted, I felt small and insignificant. Probably because adoption wasn’t something my family discussed, my negative assumptions became deeply embedded. Throughout my adult years, I accomplished a great deal, but in my mind, I was never admirable. Harmful pangs of inadequacy took root and shaped my outlook, my decisions, my disastrous romantic choices.  Until I re-read my diaries, I never realized that I myself had invented the self-damaging myth.

How did I deal with my adoption-induced complexes? My adoptive parents had to raise a delinquent teenager who drank excessively, stayed out too late and attracted bad boyfriends. As I grew older, I tended to be an over-achiever: running nine marathons to lower my finishing time, yet always “keeping score” and endlessly coming up short.

Thirty years ago, when I first started to write about my adoption, the title of my book was Reunions. My plan was to meet both my biological parents and write about finding the missing puzzle pieces. I met my original parents, but the reunions were not what I hoped for.  The pieces were in place but the puzzle remained. Only writing The Goodbye Baby completed the picture.

After both sets of parents died, I found that looking into the past gave me the wisdom to see where I’d been and how to go forward.

 

 

********

What my adoption has taught me is that the world reflects my inner reality, that my happiness or unhappiness depend on my actions and not on outside forces. I’ve learned that it is never too late to make a fresh start.

I have always known I would be a writer. In the summer of 1962, I wrote in my diary,

“Some of this frantic recording is wasted energy. How can I have a future as a writer?…I need to find something to say.”

The theme of adoption is that “something.”

*********************************************************************

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and sneak previews of her newest novel, Clara and the Hand of Ganesha.

Save

Save

Save

Save

To Thine Own Self Be True

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, daughter, empower, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, writing

How can you be true to yourself if you grew up not being allowed to know who you are?

‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. – Polonius in William Shakespeare’s  “Hamlet”

As an adoptee, hiding behind the mask of being “normal,” of masquerading as the “real” daughter, I could never live my life authentically. Early on, I assumed that there was something shameful about not being born to my mom and dad. The best way to behave was to strive for perfection in everything.
No matter how I tried, however, it was never enough. In lieu of facts, my imagination took over. I was competing with that other daughter that my parents couldn’t have: A ghost of a girl who looked like my adoptive parents and resembled them in ways that I simply could not. I had to make them proud, to prove myself.

At age five, I had (symbolically) been “born again.” That old life was just a warm up and I was supposed to forget about it. Never ask about those first parents. Don’t think about those years before being “rescued.” If I wasn’t successful in my role, I could be sent back to careless people who never should have been foster parents. Maybe it was fear that kept me from pressing for answers about my first years.

That said, I had wonderful adoptive parents. They helped me accomplish and excel

Being true to myself meant writing more books!

in many ways. Striving is not necessarily a bad thing. I did well academically, worked at age 16 to save money for college and graduate school, embraced writing at an early age as what I really wanted to do. My ambition was boundless. In many ways, that has served me well.

The downside is that I never “arrived.” Instead of being able to savor my successes, I kept raising the bar. Only now can I relax and quit being an overachiever.

Do I have advice to those who cannot accept their adoption? I can offer only some thoughts I would like to share. Knowing ones parents certainly has value, but if that knowledge must be incomplete or even missing, SEARCH FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

If possible, avoid people who sap your energy. Vow to do something good for yourself every day, even a small act. Try a week of being your own best friend., and see if you start feeling better, especially about being an adoptee!

This above all: to thine own self be true
Read more by clicking here! 

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 Reunions: Be prepared for ANYTHING

Tags

adoption, birthmother, Finding, Nature, Nurture, reunion, Searching, separation

Note from Elaine: Guest blogger Pat Goehe is a frequent contributor to The Goodbye Baby website. Meeting her daughter for the first time after 32 years was a life-changing experience. It has been two years since she first wrote about their reunion (http://bit.ly/1M2dGlW). Pat is now moving forward with personal goals, specifically writing projects.

Birthmother/daughter reunion – Pat knew the day would come and it did!

In Retrospect…

As I think about the reunion with my daughter after she found me, the thing that benefited me the most, was knowing that in fact she had been adopted by a wonderful couple.   Those who have read my original blog posts may remember I indicated  something had happened in one of my classes which made me wonder if my daughter had a negative experience similar to one of the students in that class.   So it was such a relief to meet her adopted parents and see that they were so wonderful.

I was pleasantly surprised at the time of the original reunion that she was involved in the arts, and that she had moved to California the very same year that I went there on a years’ sabbatical leave from my college.  Her field was music and also management and an agent for film composers.  I was dabbling in the film industry as well.   Another surprise was to discover we both were in love with the song from a Disney movie …. “somewhere out there….”    In fact, while celebrating one of my birthdays shortly after the reunion  at a favorite place, one of the singing waiters came and said there was another request for me.  He went on to say my daughter had called and requested it.  She knew I would be there that evening.

The old “nature or nurture” question was back in my mind.  At our very first meeting she ordered the same salad dressing I always do.  At one point where I excused myself to go to the restroom, she commented “So that’s where I get my pea sized bladder from!”.  And as originally talked about, when she called me for the first time, I couldn’t get over how much she seemed like me.  So much more than the daughter I had raised.  She’s also a “worry wart” like me, usually overbooked in the “to do” lists, and there’s no question that we are both sensitive, emotional people.

What advice can I give to adoptees or the birth parents seeking a reunion?  Be prepared for anything.   If you have a scenario developed where it’s a glorious reunion, it may not be.  If you have other children and you hope all will become one big happy family, that too may not be.  It hasn’t been in my case. If you are haunted by needing to know, then by all means search.  I hope you have a happy outcome.   To me, the not knowing was the most difficult of all.   I was prepared for whatever I would find, good or bad.  She found me,  and it has been good.  Perfect?  Is anything ever that?

Editor’s Note: Pat Goehe is a lifetime teacher who’s worked in all facets of communication and related arts. She teaches students at the secondary and university level. Perhaps the most meaningful communication of her life, however, occurred when her daughter Linda, after decades of separation, contacted her. Pat is a frequent contributor to The Goodbye Baby website and the author of a children’s book Annemarie and Boomer wait for Grandma, the first in a series. In keeping with National Adoption Month, Pat reflects on her reunion with daughter Linda.

Pat relaxes in Santa Fe’s Rose Garden Park

Love Across the Ocean

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Anniversary, China-Burma-India (CBI), longing for children, love letters, separation, WWII

Lt. Richard L. Beard in his WWII army uniform, before he became my Dad

NOTE: This post was originally published last winter. I’m offering it again in recognition of Pearl Harbor Day (December 7). Because of an upcoming deadline for my walking guide, Santa Fe on Foot-Exploration in the City Different (Due in early 2015, Ocean Tree Books), I am swamped. Therefore I’ll be switching to a bi-weekly schedule for new posts. As always, thanks so much for your readership!

 

During the later years of WWII, my adoptive dad served in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of operations as clinical psychologist at the 142nd General Hospital in Calcutta, India. Just when I think that the “Forgotten Front” has faded from public awareness, I meet someone who not only knows about WWII’s CBI arena but who is still honoring the memory of those who served in what General Vinegar Joe Stillwell called “a theater of uncommon misery.”
Yesterday I was making my way up a snowy slope to buy my lift ticket and enjoy a day of skiing. Leaving the ski area was an attractive couple in their 50s or so. They were not dressed to ski but seemed to be sightseeing. This was not so unusual, as many visitors to my hometown of Santa Fe like to come up to the ski basin just for a look around.
What was unusual was the CBI insignia on the man’s leather bomber jacket and the emblem on his armband. How often does one see honoring of the CBI, and of all places at the ski hill? I admired his jacket and

The CBI was known for the Ledo Road through Burma and the “Flying Tigers”

we talked briefly about “the forgotten front” and those who’d served there. He also had a relative, now deceased, who’d been stationed in that remote corner of the world. Thus the inspiration for today’s post, which is all about love across time and miles. Once again, I’m posting a letter from Lt. Richard Beard to his wife Reva written early in what would turn out to be an 18-month separation.

1944                                        At Sea
    Dearest Wife,
             This is written in commemoration of our 7th wedding anniversary, Reva, and will inadequately express my sincere happiness and good fortune in being married to you. I should prefer to look into your eyes for a moment and then kiss you to express those feelings; since that is impossible, will you accept this letter?
I was too moved to write on July 3rd, instead I sat for hours watching the waves slip past the stern of our ship. I ran over our wonderful experiences: I thought of our hard times and the troubles we have encountered; and then I reflected upon the almost perfect peace and comfort which is ours when we are together. How our eyes light, and how solicitous we are of one another’s welfare.
It is necessary, darling Reva, to refer to last summer and our second honeymoon. Perhaps six years of living with you had to fade into history before my love matured sufficiently to leave no vestige of doubt. You are my fate, dear, and I am content.
This war is but a passing shadow, Reva, in our lives. If it should prove more, and I am not to see you again, then if there is any eternity, forever you are engraved on my soul’s substance. But optimistically, I plan for the future, and I want you to do likewise. I hope that you will have a baby boy or girl waiting for me when I come home. If not then, together we shall secure the blessing of children in a family.
I love you, my girl wife, and each passing day confirms how engulfing my love is. Even now I look into your lovely face, and with blurred eyes, pledge to you again my everlasting devotion.

Your husband, Dick

I’ve been thinking a lot about the mom and dad who took me and my brother in at ages five and two. I’m convinced that they adopted us mainly because of their deep love and devotion to one another. Whether they are formed in the traditional manner or forged from adoption, families make us who we are.
It’s really all about love.

Looking at the world through adoption-colored glasses.

A World War II Valentine

Tags

adoptee, adoptive parents, China-Burma-India, Flowers, Long-distance correspondence, Love Letter, separation, WWII

Love letters across the miles…

The romance of my adoptive parents, Richard and Reva Beard, was contained in a cache of 1940s love letters. Richard intended to write about his war experiences. When it became clear that Daddy was too mentally frail to write, my brother sent the letter collection to me. The best of the letters ended up in From Calcutta with Love-The WWII Correspondence of Richard and Reva Beard.
The two had been teenage sweethearts in Findlay, Ohio. Married in 1937, they put off starting their family until my father-to-be earned his doctorate from Ohio State University.  For six years, while Richard earned his PhD in clinical psychology, Reva taught elementary school. When it turned out that they were not able to have children, they decided to adopt. The outbreak of World War II, however, further delayed the formation of a family.
Richard served as a clinical psychologist in charge of a Neuropsychiatric ward at the 142nd General Hospital in Calcutta, part of the China-Burma-India theater of the WWII. For 18 months, our future adoptive parents were separated by 6,000 months. My mother-to-be lived at home with her parents in Findlay, Ohio. She continued to teach school and inquired into adopting a baby. The two kept in touch through daily handwritten letters.  When the war ended, my adoptive parents found me and my brother.
After my father passed away, I realized that his story of the wartime separation, contained in daily letters home, conveyed the love that was strong enough to add my brother and me, ages 17 months and five, to their family. I’m particularly fond of this love letter straight from the heart.
India
February 14, 1945

Dearest:
To my Valentine—my Love.
It was the middle of the afternoon before I realized that I had an unopened gift from you awaiting me. I went to the footlocker immediately upon my return this evening, and with great delight found your snapshots and the leather snapshot container…
Thanks so much, honey, they mean a lot to me…
Someone told me that they were having a movie in the 82nd area, and so I walked over that way—sure enough, they were, but it was the same one I saw last night. Upon my return to the basha I pored over a November copy of the Reader’s Digest. “Rajah of the Soul” proved interesting, though I’m afraid none of his methods have infiltrated to this community…
As I predicted, the music of falling rain and the rumble of thunder lulled me to sleep last night. This morning we awakened to find the rice paddies partially submerged and the drying ponds given a new lease on life. Where the boys had worked so hard leveling and scraping down a tennis court, a smooth placid lake lay, disturbed only by a croaking frog.
This afternoon, Lt. Scanlon, our medical administrative officer, came in to confer on some forms which he is making out for our Medical Corps officers. He spent the whole afternoon with me.
My darling, I hope my flowers reached you—or that it was possible to get flowers.
With each petal I bless the sacred moment that brought you into my life. You are my love, my existence.
With your name on my breath,
Goodnight sweetheart,
Your husband,
Dick

Lt. Richard L. Beard in his WWII army uniform, before he became my Dad

What do YOU think? /The Adoption Conundrum

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, best friend, blended families, celebrity adoption, david smolin, discover, empower, human trafficking, international adoption, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, wounded

International adoption: The transaction involves fees and money so whether it a private or agency adoption, it resembles a commercial or market The danger of international adoption being tied to human trafficking cannot be ignored. — David Smolin

Village girl in Rajasthan

NOTE from Elaine:

During part of the upcoming holidays, I’ll be sharing formerly-published posts. Thanks for staying tuned!

Though my birthfather Giovanni Cecchini was Italian-born, I began life in America. After WWII ended, a college professor and his wife adopted me and my brother, giving us love, stability, and advantages that my birthmother knew she could not provide. I tell this story in my memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption.

When touring India a few years ago, I saw firsthand the plight of gaunt, ragged street children.  Begging in stilted English, they followed us relentlessly through the streets of New Delhi. I felt deep compassion for these small boys and girls. I wanted to help them, but their need was too deep. A few rupees might stave off hunger, but homes were what they needed.

Perhaps they were not all orphans, but clearly  they were not being nurtured by parents. They lacked families, but it seemed unlikely they would find them in their native land. What if they were adoptable? Could international adoption provide an answer? Each country has its own policy about international adoption, and there are many hoops for prospective adoptive parents to jump through. Sometimes it takes years to satisfy legal requirements, and the barriers can be insurmountable.

International adoption, I am learning, is fraught with debate. 

Here, briefly, I present some of my research about the potential dark side of international adoption…

Orphan boys at Jaipur Children’s Aid

Author David Smolin, in a paper published online by Valparaiso University, presents both sides of international adoptions. Smolin asks “When is intercountry adoption a form of child trafficking?” and comments that “the answer is surprisingly obscure.”

Smolin points out that in international adoptions, the majority of children are transferred from poor to rich countries, “stripping children of their national identity, native culture and language.” On the other hand, he continues, if international adoptions are universally banned, there will be more of the world’s millions of orphans abandoned, killed, left in dismal orphanages or living on the streets.

Journalist Bryce Corbett, in The Australian Women’s Weekly, interviews Leith and Rob Harding and their adopted daughter Zed, originally from Ethiopia. A photo of the beautiful 18-year-old Zed and her adoptive parents radiates happiness and love.

Me (Elaine) at Fatehpur Sikri, India

Zed, studying nursing at Queensland University of Technology, says “I am so blessed to have everything I have in my life…Every day, I thank God that I am here and not in Ethiopia. That I wake up in a warm bed and not on the side of the road. If I had been left in Ethiopia, I most likely would have died on the side of the road without anyone even knowing who I am.”

The article cites a recent press release announcing Ethopia’s attorney-general’s decree: a halt to all future adoptions of Ethiopian children into Australia. In sharp contrast to the Harding family is the couple, Bronwyn and Scott McNamara, who have waited eight years with high hopes of adopting a child from Ethopia. They are in their fifties. The magazine article includes a photo of the McNamaras, arms entwined and looking heartbroken.

Bronwyn laments, “All we have ever wanted is to have a family and the concept of providing a home for children already in need seemed a more rational approach…now the Ethiopia Program is closed…we are in shock, we are grieving. Our whole future has been annihilated by this.”

Me (Elaine) leaving India. Promise, those suitcases are not all mine.

The prediction for international adoption, claims author Smolin, is bleak: Because it operates as a market in human beings, he says, unless reforms are made, intercountry adoption will eventually be abolished.”

A ban on all international adoptions? Will this come to pass? Should it? This needs to be talked about!

Mother-Daughter Reunion- Pat’s Story

Tags

adoptee, birthmother, Reconnection, separation, The Long Wait

Editor’s Note: Pat Goehe is a lifetime teacher who’s worked in all facets of communication and related arts. She teaches students at the secondary and university level. Perhaps the most meaningful communication of her life, however, occurred when her daughter Linda, after a 32-year separation, contacted her. In recognition of National Adoption Month, I am republishing her story.
*************************************************

In Pat’s Words:

I Knew The Day Would Come…and It Did. When I made the decision after much

Pat and her daughter Linda were reunited after 32 years

thought, to give my child up for adoption, I felt I had done the best thing for her and me. Because I taught Public Speaking, I would hear speeches of persuasion on the topic of why closed adoptions should now be open. I also heard from a student who was so upset because during her parents’ divorce she found out she had a half-sister somewhere. But it was not until one of my week long experiential workshops that I was forced to look at another reality.
I can’t tell you the workshop topic; I did so many over the years. But, in one of these we were doing an exercise in threesomes, exploring some concept. There were two women and one young man working together. How it happened I can’t remember, but at one point I was the apex of the triangle with the man next to me. The two women came each with a story. One was trying desperately to get pregnant and couldn’t. The other…. Hers was a story of “foster-care,” “adoption,”and one kind of abuse after another. It was at that very moment that I realized that perhaps I shouldn’t be so smug. Who was to say that perhaps my daughter had or was experiencing this horrible life as well? Just because I did “all the right things” and felt assured she would be in a good home with parents who couldn’t have children, how did I know for certain that this was true? From then on I was haunted with this possibility.
No one in my family knew that I had a baby and had given her up at birth to Catholic Charities. I didn’t want to have my parents have the burden of this news. I felt I shouldn’t try to track my child, but I knew that if she were trying to find me, I wouldn’t interfere. Within the next several years I found myself thinking that the day would come. There would be a knock on the door or a phone call, whatever. But it would come. Before long every cell in my body said this.
I had a major role in a play in a neighboring town. Because my Mom always wanted to see the things I acted and/or directed, I was trying to get my sister or sister-in-law to agree to drive her. I wasn’t having much luck and was somewhat irritated. I called to try again, and my sister-in-law answered. Before I could get into the “drive Mom to see the show” thing, she said, “Are you calling about that student who talked with your brother?” I had no idea what she was talking about. Later my Mom called me to tell me “Michelle called your brother and you are to call her tomorrow in California at ten a.m. their time.”

Who is “Linda”?
I had no clue as to who this might be. I searched my brain thinking I never ever had a student named Michelle. Oh well, I’ll call tomorrow from my office at school. Our offices were tiny ones surrounding a big open space. We often gathered there to chat. I was watching the clock the next day and waiting for the ten a.m. exact time when the secretary answered a call and said, “Why yes, she’s standing here close to me right now. Pat, do you want to take this call? It’s Linda.”
“Linda? Oh well OK.” I was upset because it was the time I was to call California and because there were two “Lindas” in my life then. One was a niece who would never be calling me at work. The other, someone who was dating my ex-husband.
I went into the office and with a gruff “Hello” was greeted with the following: “Are you in a place where you can talk confidentially? I need to ask you some questions which may be difficult for you to answer.” Well this wasn’t Linda for sure. I said “Anyone who knows me knows I’ll tell them anything.” So then she asked me questions about where I lived now; had I grown up in this Illinois town. All along I’m trying to figure out who the devil this is. I decided it could be a bill collector for my daughter who had been in California a few years back and probably did leave with bills uppaid or something. So I stopped and said, “You know, you really are getting personal now, and I don’t intend to answer another question until you tell me who you are and what this is about?” Bingo!

Part Two: tomorrow

Being Adopted Meant Being Rescued

Tags

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?