calimary
calimary's JournalHalf. There was only information about the mother in the paperwork we received.
But the elderly aunt who was there on Saturday filled in a few blanks. She talked about how it all made sense from where she stood. My birth mother was about a year-and-a-half older, and she remembered noticing how her sister seemed to be gaining some weight in her stomach, and then had to buy a larger uniform for her job, and then how their mom took her away on a "trip" for about a week, just the two of them, and that nothing was ever said or explained and "don't ask any questions" and "mind your own business" and "never mind" and a whole bunch of other "answers" like that. She said she suspected what happened, but never wanted to broach the subject and never asked. Probably knew she wouldn't get any answers.
And all that did was reinforce, for me, just the insanely strong power of that old stupid taboo. How powerful it was. I've thought about that for a long time. Amazing, the powerful grip of societal taboos. How stifling. How suffocating! That a mother couldn't even confide in her own daughters - that it couldn't even be talked about or spoken about or discussed or dealt with as a family. The shame that was involved, and feared. There was so much of it back then. The old "nice people don't..." - either don't talk that way or do that thing or whatever.
Nope! Not touching the floor yet. Don't know if they ever really will, completely, ever again.
It just BLEW. MY. MIND.
The first thing we did, the three of us, at the airport at the bottom of the escalator (well, after hugging and crying, that is), was to apologize to each other because we realized we were all just gonna be staring at each other all weekend, peering into each other's faces, searching for common features. Both my sisters have relatively low-pitched voices, as I do. That struck me immediately when I was first talking to them on the phone. It's just such a little thing. But it was just huge for me!
And Saturday when all those people were over, every now and then one of them would blurt out - "OH! Yeah - I SEE it!" 'Cause they'd be looking closely at me from the side, and suddenly they'd see the common trait or feature or shape of eye or brow or even chin a little. And I'd want to hear all about it!
Shit, unionthug777 - I'm starting to be a mess all over again, just reading this.
I shared here when my mom died, and the responses just overwhelmed me with emotion and love and wonder and deep affection. I couldn't believe how loving and supportive people were here. Yet again now. Hell, even songs like "Amazing Grace" take on an even bigger significance - "I once was lost and now I'm found..." and all that. I won't soon get over all this.
DU is just the best. I'm so grateful you guys are part of my extended family. I share all my political anger and venting with you. Seems only fitting to include some of the really good stuff too!
Thanks! YIKES I have so many notes to write, and addresses to collect.
And names and relationships to memorize now.
As "problems" go, this is a FABULOUS problem to have!
I think it depends on which state you're talking about.
I was born in Missouri. Missouri is a closed state. By now I think they've relaxes a few of those restrictions but not all. Really, all I ever hoped for was to know my medical history. And secondarily, I was curious about what they look like. And who I look like. And prying information out of there was difficult, and kind of expensive.
Funny enough, the younger of my two sisters has a birthday one day earlier than mine. Different year, of course. But evidently my due date was on that date (different year of course). A comment I heard a lot all weekend was a version of "I wonder if our mother thought about that every year - on your younger sister's birthday, which originally was to have been the same day of that same month that YOUR birthday was."
Just as an adoptee, Blue_In_AK, I would suspect that your son does think about you and wonder the same things about you - where you are, what you're doing, maybe wondering if you're still around. And as to if you'd ever do anything about that, you have to take that step when and if YOU are ready to. It took me YEARS to get up the courage. Even after my adoptive mother died. I still didn't do anything about it straight away. What can I say? It's that ol' guilt thing. I was afraid even to attempt anything while she was still alive because I was pretty sure she'd take it personally and get all messed up along the lines of "we weren't good enough for you? How COULD you, oh your dad would be crushed etc etc etc." And there'd probably be all kinds of sturm und drang. So I sat on it. AND there was the added fear of getting one's hopes up. What if I went through all that, on my own, OR with professional assistance, and didn't find anything? What if the trail led to a dead end? Would I be heartbroken? What would I feel like? What if I was never allowed to know? It's funky enough already not knowing. And I went through all kinds of feelings of annoyance, anger, resentment toward the state of Missouri, indignant that they had the nerve to keep this from me. WHY couldn't I know? WHO or WHAT were they trying to protect? And if that person is long dead, so what? What's it to ya? If they're dead, why does it still matter to keep it locked away from me. Why is that being kept from me? Why was that STILL being kept from me? Why can't I know? I felt like I'm entitled to that information. I felt it was my birthright. It was my right to know. That information is MINE and belongs to me and I deserve to have it. I deserve at the very least - to know, and to have that information. And I felt strongly that they had no right to keep it from me.
It was a struggle. I was always curious. To varying degrees throughout my life. Sometimes less, sometimes more. When I had a lump in my breast in college and went to the student med center and they handed me a form to fill out - "did your mother, grandmother, sisters, aunts, etc, have any..." Well, I could never answer those questions. I spent a lifetime filling that line in with N/A. Not Applicable. And every time I had to do so, it made me increasingly mad. Now I DO know. And better yet, I have people I can ask. There was breast cancer and kidney cancer and my biological mother died of pancreatic cancer - indeed, snuffed out rather quickly after it was detected in her. They scarcely had time to prepare or come to grips with it. Two weeks and she was gone.
And as I grew older and had children, I felt an increasing sense of obligation to find out - if not for me, for THEM. Finally have answers. FINALLY.
Whatever you decide - is what you should so. Whatever speaks to you and calls to you. If it's something you're at peace with, now, well, that's okay too!
That's gotta be the understatement of a lifetime, Marrah_G!
I was just overwhelmed! Can't remember all the names of the extended family. All the extra and separate occasions and new babies - the oldest of my three brothers (HAH! STILL younger than me! Bow down to your elder, you! LOL) is the first to be a grandparent, as of just a few months ago. A nephew took delivery on the keys to his first house on Saturday, the day after our first big family dinner. My older sister organized it. Well, she's the previous oldest sibling, and she's still the eldest of the five of them even though she's five years younger than I am - how do you even express that? What's the proper word or terminology for it?
Yeah. Overwhelming. Man is THAT ever true!
Shoot, that is SO true, Jackpine Radical! SO true. That sense of grounding.
I SO get that. I always felt so isolated. Like this little capsule in amidst a whole lot of other connectivity that didn't include me. I'd look at our two kids, who funny enough both share my semi-rare blood type, and I would get choked up over the thought that these are the ONLY two people on the face of the earth to whom I have a biological connection. Well, not anymore! When we hugged for the last time at the airport yesterday afternoon, sure enough, we got choked up AGAIN for about the 87th time that weekend, and I told them "it took 60 years to find you - well, technically 58 (got the results of the search two years ago)." And we laughed and kept crying. I wanna go back! I know we'll see more of each other 'cause I'm gonna make sure of it, even if it's only once or twice a year. Probably gonna be mostly me traveling back where they are because there are FIVE of them. Shit - I still can't believe that. FIVE of them. A lot easier for just me to come to them rather than all of them having to coordinate schedules and families and work and stuff to get the time off to come out here to SoCal to see me. Although I would certainly love that! None of them ever made a trip out to crazy California. They had questions about everything and I had answers about everything. I told my story about nine or ten times. We took all these photos.
And we discovered that "the eyes have it". We all have the same shape and setting and color of eyes. Brown and deep-set, and they turn slightly downward at both corners. Basically we have no upper eyelids. Well, actually we DO. But they're hard to see. The brow bone comes down too low to allow you to see any.
I had a personally staggering, explosive weekend - in a good way. Wanted to share. Adoptees note.
I wanted to share this especially with you - all my brothers and sisters here in DU whom I've come to love and care about. I'm an adoptee. And I wonder if anybody else here is an adoptee and has done this or is thinking about doing this, or is hesitant about it. I would love to tell you anything and everything I know about this unique journey.
This past weekend was HUGE, for me personally. I know I'll be working on it and processing it for a LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG time. I've always known I was adopted. My adoptive parents never kept that from me. When I was little, that's where I thought babies came from. You simply went to the baby store or some such thing, and picked one out!
A few years ago, and after the last of our own family elders (parents and in-laws) had died. I finally got up the courage to set a search in motion (had to hire an adoption detective that was recommended by a longtime girlfriend and former classmate who is also adopted and used this woman to help her find a biological sister). It took awhile. Long story short - my birth mother is long gone. But her five - FIVE (!!!!!!) children survive her and have families and my two sisters and I have been in touch for a couple of years now, and we FINALLY met Friday night. I spent the weekend in the Upper Midwest. Met all five of 'em. AND I met one of my biological mother's surviving sisters, who'll be 80 this December. I WAS an only child (more or less, but that's another long story). And now I'm the eldest of SIX. I went from having a very small nuclear family to having a large, sprawling one that spreads throughout the Midwest and elsewhere, and I'm having some serious difficulty keeping track of everyone I met and everyone's names in the extended family and all the people I want to keep actively in my life now!
STUNNING! Just a drop-dead AMAZING, MIND-BLOWING weekend! I'm so NOT used to thinking in these terms. My best friend since we were in fourth grade is all I've had as far as anything close to a "sister." Now I add two more blood-ones. All we did all weekend was hug and talk and eat and get choked up. I got no sleep. As soon as I'd start dozing off to my book and then turn out the light, my eyes would pop open and I'd lie there and my head would be spinning. I still have a hard time believing it happened on this Monday morning back in California. Shit - did that really happen? My son's home for just a couple of days from tour, and he just drank in EVERY detail. My husband wanted to know all about it - he's been very supportive on this journey. My daughter who doesn't live in California anymore is fascinated by it and wants to hear all the details, so I'll be on the phone with her for awhile later today! This is the kind of thing you can't do in a five- or ten-minute phone call. My best friend and formerly "only" "sister" wants to hear all about it.
All weekend we were staring into each other's faces. I used to go to family dinners with my husband - his family - and I'd find myself studying their faces, scanning all their features, noticing chins repeating through three generations, and eye color that was consistent throughout the room. And all the while keenly aware that I couldn't do that from my side of things. I had nothing to offer or to bring to the table. No medical history that was worth anything, to advise or alert my children. Zip.
And now I do. I'm gonna be thinking about this for probably the rest of my life. And I have a sense of belonging I never even understood - for the first time in 60 years.
Just wanted to share that with you guys. 'Cause in one very special way, YOU are part of my family, too.
Yeah. There were posts about it. And it's such a bummer! :(
Loved her! Loved her work in so many things. She was so funny in "The Bob Newhart Show." I'm glad "The Simpsons" will be retiring Mrs. Krabappel. Seems like a fitting tribute to Miss Wallace.
Hey marble falls, thank you! That's wonderful and much-appreciated news!
You kinda have to vote a straight Dem ticket if you want anything to happen in public policy that benefits the greater good and those in need, rather than the wealthy and privileged who don't need any help at all. That's something I just don't get. Why should we be bending over backwards to help those who don't need any help? Especially when there are so very many who do need the help and are ignored, for the sake of helping the rich.
Hey, I'm happy for the rich. I'm glad they have their wealth and their assets and their financial security. Good for them! I'm sure many of them have worked hard for it and earned it legitimately (or even fairly legitimately). But, seems to me, that wealth and security means they're able to take care of themselves just fine, and don't qualify for extra help from the government. The haves and have-mores are all set. They're doing just fine. It's the have-nots who need the help and extra effort and attention. Furthermore, as the haves and have-mores are indeed all set and are doing just fine, seems to me that makes them OBLIGATED to help someone less fortunate.
I figure it this way: you've got two guys in a big car. One's a 250-pound heavyweight champ weight-lifter and all buff and muscle-bound. The other is a 98-pound weakling. Or Hercules and Maggie Simpson maybe. The car flips over and there's no one around to help. Which of the two would YOU look toward, to try to flip the car back over? Which of the two do YOU think would be more qualified to lift that heavy load? In republi-CON world, the heavy lifting will go to the 98-pound weakling or Maggie Simpson, so the big beefy muscleman can kick back and relax and Hercules doesn't have to get his hands dirty or muss up his hair.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
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