Going public!

So, Suz's post "Fourteen" got me thinking about facebook and how it relates to adoption relationships. Her mother acnkowledged her placed daughter as one of her grandchildren on facebook.  Which to people who are not involved in adoption might sound common and not at all noteworthy. But in the world of adoption it's a pretty big deal.

Which got me thinking : would I want my birthparents to acknowledge me as their daughter publicly? Would I want my siblings to acknowledge me as their sister, my grandparents as their granddaughter? The answer is without a doubt: yes.  And I guess that's not hard to understand. It's a pretty symbolic gesture to me. It would mean, finally, that my natural family acknowledges me as a member of their family, at least to some extent. Publicly. No more shame, no more secrets. For all practical and legal purposes, they "unmade me" their daughter. And it would be nice, after all these years, to feel less like the outsider that I am.

Which leads me to my next question: Would I list my biological siblings as my brothers and sisters? The answer is yes. And at least with one of them, I do. This particular sister was adopted as well...so she  (like me) lists her adoptive siblings, and then we listed eachother! It felt nice. I can't describe the feeling when she requested to list me as her sister. I think I even cried a little bit.

And here's were it gets sticky.....

Would I list my natural mother and father as my parents? No. Never in a million years. I realize that this makes me a HUGE hypocrite. But even the thought of listing them as my parents on facebook gives me the heeby jeebies. It just feels so fake. And before anyone asks me :My adoptive parents are NOT on facebook. But my cousins, aunts, and uncles are- and I am sure they would notice. And I'm sure they would tell my parents.

But that isn't my main concern. I can silence my family when they grumble about my reunion, and I could effectively tell them to mind their own business if they ever challenged me about this. That isn't the issue.

I guess it comes down to this for me: my parents gave up their rights as my parents. Which is all milk and cookies, I guess. I can accept that (though it's not easy). What I cannot except is the notion that I, somehow, am expected to renounce my original identity and heritage because *they* didn't want to raise me. I maintain that I will always be their daughter. Though they tried, they couldn't change that. But I have a hard time calling them my parents.  I have a special place in my life for them... but it isn't quite that role.

The simple, honest, and utopian thing to do would be to list ALL 4 of my parents as my parents. In real life, and on the internet. But then again, the simple honest and utopian thing would have been for my parents to kick their 25-year-old-asses in gear and raise their daughter. We can't always have what we want.

As of now, no one in my biological family (except that one sister who was also adopted) has listed me as their daughter, their granddaughter, their sister, or their cousin. Not even my full sister who I've known for years (she does list her stepsister). I wonder if they feel the same twinges of guilt when they don't acknowledge me. I wonder if I would have a change of heart if they listed me? Maybe one I'll find out. Maybe one day they will publicly reclaim me as their kin- the daughter, sister, and grandchild who went away but who came back. I think probably not.

Kept.

Back when we didn't get along, my bio sister Nicole loved to tell me how much our parents loved her.

She was born to the same parents a little over 2 years after I was, under the same conditions. Our father was still working on launching his own business, our mother still had some problems, and they still weren't married. They were in their mid twenties when I was born, and their late 20's when Nicole was born. ikBut while my birth was a family crisis- all members fighting over how to best handle "the problem"- she was welcomed.  While my birthfather adamantly refused to raise me, he raised Nicole as a single father when our mother skipped town. 2 years later. She was kept and I wasn't. And Nicole knows it.

She grew up knowing that she had a sister, and met me for the first time when she was 9 years old.  I don't know what our parents told her about why they gave me away. I don't know how she was raised in the years before I came back. But I do know that she has always been told she was special. And she is. She is the adored granddaughter, the favorite cousin, the apple of her fathers eyes. Raised essentially without a mother, she is definitely daddy's little girl.

I wonder what it's like to be kept. I wonder what its like to have a sibling who was given up for adoption. How does that affect ones sense of self, or self esteem? How does it feel, I wonder, to know that your parents gave your brother or sister away?

I wonder what is different between Nicole and me. What made my father want to step up when he saw her, and not when he saw me? I wonder what made them keep her and not me. I've asked a few times... but I never can get a straight answer. And maybe there isn't one.

Logically I know that it has nothing to do with me or Nicole as people. I was an inconvienant baby and she wasn't- it's as simple (or as complicated) as that. Had she been born first- she'd have been placed for adoption. But I still was envious of her. I would see her with her family, with our grandparents, our father, our cousins. And she just..belongs there. She didn't have to "reunite" to know her family. She is a part of them, a cherished member of the group. She has not had an easy life. Not by a long shot. But at the end of the day- her family is there for her. At the end of the day, at least she can say that.

I've reunited. I didn't even have to search ( semi open adoption). And so I am always hesitant to complain. Because, hey! I know who they are, I know where I came from, I've seen them in person and I've spent lots of time with them. And a lot of adoptees can't even say that. They allowed me back into their family...at least partially. And I should be grateful.

But I'm kind of not. It's like being invited to someones house and then getting left out on the porch. I'm there, of course, looking in the window. And it feels good to be able to observe, to be able to see what their lives are like. But at the end of the day, there is still that piece of glass separating us. There is always that window.

Nicole and I get along pretty well now. She hated me for a long time. She was not ready to share her family or her dad. Only now is she realizing that I can never take her place. Not even if I wanted to. But now she's older, I'm older. And slowly, we are creating a sort of fragile co-existence. But even now, I am wary. I always remember the times she told me how happy she was that HER dad kept her, that he loved her more, that she was special and that I wasn't- thats why they gave me away. On some level, I guess I still believe her.

Victims and Villains

I don't often mention my adoptive parents on this blog. Mostly because this blog is my personal exploration of my life before my adoption (however brief) and the affects that having been PLACED for adoption have had on me.

Note that I did NOT say "the affects that being adopted have had on me." Because that is something completely different.

 I see  a lot of vilinization of adoption parents in the blog sphere. A lot. Mostly (but not exclusively) from natural parents. Obviously I recognize that writing an entire post about how awesome my adoptive parents are and how they don't comform to the typical stereotypes would only validate what the naysayers are writing- that I'm just another silly little adoptee who is stuck in the cycle  of loyalty and adopter worship. That I only love my adoptive parents because they've tricked me into doing so, that if I were really educated about adoption ethics, I would realize that "those people" are not my parents and even though they raised me from babyhood, they are nothing more than long time babysitters who I happen to care about.

And (my favorite claim yet) that my adoptive parents are directly responsible for my having been placed out of my natural family, and that they "took me" from my family of origin and should be ashamed.

Here are a few (slightly depressing) facts:

1- My mother and father would have placed me for adoption nomatter what. The people who adopted me were NOT matched with my bio parents from the beginning. In fact, my mother had chosen a completely different couple. They were from New Jersey. The had an on going relationship with my mother for about 4 months, until they were offered another baby who was already born. Needless to say, they dropped my mother immediately and took the other baby. My mother was deeply hurt and offended, because she thought they wanted "her baby"... not just any baby.

2- I was a (very) white, blonde, female infant who was born at over 8 lbs and was perfectly healthy. There would never have been a shortage of people willing to adopt me. If it hadn't been my parents, it would have been the next couple in line. Who might have been better, or worse. It's a roll of the dice.

3- My birthmother changed her mind after I was born. My parents, heartbroken, went back to NY and gave up on the idea of adopting a child. A few months later, my birthmother called THEM telling them that she had changed her mind and asking if they would adopt the baby.

4-My birthmother chose to raise me for a while, and only changed her mind when my father threatened to leave her. He and his (well off, bullish) family pressured and coerced her. Its was a pretty desperate/ despicable situation, but it had nothing to do with my adoptive parents, who had left the picture weeks beforehand. Had they refused to adopt me, my mother and father would have found someone else.


The only people who could have prevented me from being placed for adoption are the people who chose to do it.. my natural parents. Had my father wanted me, they would have kept me. And had my mother been strong enough to keep me despite my fathers outright refusal, she would have. She wanted to, and she almost did. But in the end, he won.

I try and avoid placing blame when it comes to adoption. Mostly because its completely useless. However, the only two adults in the equation who hold NO blame are my adoptive parents- who simply wanted to raise another child, even though they had a bio son of their own. If it hadn't been me, maybe they would have adopted another child. I can't know for sure.

I'm not really pro adoption. I think it's too complex a situation to ever be simple and "good". There is good and bad. And I think the negative aspects of being adopted make adoption something that should be avoided at all costs. I would like to see adoption less practiced. But I don't think that trying to convince potential adoptive parents that what they are doing is the way to go.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to raise a child. There IS something wrong with feeling entitled to a baby that isn't yours, but I don't think that wanting to adopt a baby automatically means that one feels entitled. Adoption, is a system, is well received in our society. It will never be seen by the general population as a "bad thing to do". And the reality is this: for every potential adoptive parent who the rest of the adoption community scares away, there are 5 more willing to take their place. There are a lot of people willing to adopt a baby, but very few willing to give one up.

My natural parents are responsible for having given me up. Especially my father, who was the force behind my relinquishment. He knows this, and I know this. He doesn't feel much of anything towards my adoptive parents (his words). Not because they haven't treated him respectfully and welcomed him (they have). Not because they did a bad job raising me or convinced me that I belong only to them (they didn't and they haven't). But he admits that he feels territorial when it comes to me- that despite the family he chose for me and whom I was raised with, he can't help but feel that I'm "his little girl". And I think sometimes those feelings get in the way.

He and I don't agree on everything. We debate a lot of things (the way his family treats me, the way he handled things with my mother at the time of my birth, etc). He advises me, and I consider him a loving and wise man. I care about him very deeply and will discuss most anything with him. But I do not allow him to criticize my adoptive parents. Not to me.  Not because they were perfect (of course they weren't). But because he, as the man who was my father, chose to surrender me to a basically unknown future. He didn't want me, and they did. And though logically I know that things aren't that simple...emotionally I am SURE that they are.  Whether by divine providence, universal wisdom, or pure coincidence- when my parents weren't there for me, there was another couple who was.  I respect my natural father and consider him a father- all I ask in return is that he respect the fact that I am part of another family besides his own (one that he chose, no less), and that even if my family isn't real to him, it's real to me.

Snapshots

As a general rule, I don't post photos on my blog. But while looking through my old albums, I recently found this photo of myself and my birthfamily. In the picture, I am around 12 or 13 years old, sitting on the couch with my birthfather and birthsister. (I'm in the light pink shirt). They had come to visit us in NY.  I can tell by the decorations(cropped out) that it was Christmas time.

Our reunion was still young- the photo was taken long before the day when my birthfamily would shun me- unable to look their shameful past in the eyes.  Here, we are still enjoying eachothers company. But the picture is very telling. My birthfather is in the middle of the photo. He has his arm around my sister, who is seated at the left. Though we all look very much alike, it is obvious I don't belong. I am leaning into my birthfather, smiling nervously, trying ever so delicately to make myself a part of the family that is seated on my living room couch. But my birthfather does not place his arm around me. It is glued stiffly to his side. I sit, as I always have, awkwardly on the outside.

It says a lot about our reunion, and our separation.

Having been exiled out of my firstfamily has done some strange things to my personality, to my sense of self worth. Siblings on either side of me were kept and raised within the family. But not me. Understanding the reasons and the logic behind my placement does precious little in the way of making me feel better about it.

When we first reunited, I was welcomed into my birthfamily (though some of the family members, I learned later on, were very reluctant). I visited dozens of times- taking the 4 hour plane ride along, immersing myself back into my family of origin. My adoptive parents accompanied me one time, and then allowed me to visit by myself. They understood the importance of their absence. Their biggest gift to me was their lack of interference. They gave me their blessing, but allowed me the space to explore my old life. It was a journey they knew I had to take alone.

And I was welcomed. Really, I was. My aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents all graciously allowed me back into their circle. Even my little sister, who would one day nearly ruin my reunion with her jealously, initially was thrilled to have me in her life. Slowly, though, things changed. My little sister was not ready to share her family, and she let everybody know it. The adults in her life sympathized. Why should she have to pay for her parent's mistakes? Thus began their second disappearance. Quietly, my phone calls went unanswered, my annual Christmas, birthday and Easter cards unreciprocated. I wasn't invited to their home anymore.

"Amanda has her own family," they said. "Her sister only has one. We owe her our loyalty."

And loyal they were. I didnt hear from them for years. Bewildered, I mourned the family I had lost a second time. My birthfather, powerless to change his family's opinion, spoke to me in secret. The only person who remained steadfast was my paternal grandfather- a docile old man with sparkling eyes, the only one in the family who was not convinced that I deserved a second exile. He called me occassionally, ignoring his wife, my grandmother, who protested when she saw my number on the caller ID.

That was my first lesson in the conditional state of familial love. I knew my birthfamily still cared for me, but they could not show it. They would ask my birthfather about me when my sister wasn't around. They reveled in my accomplishments secretly and silently. But caring about me and loving me wasn't enough to keep me around. Though that wasn't a surprise.  It was a concept I already knew.

But I also know that I could never have belonged. To them, I will forever be baby who was thrust from their midst. My exile was permanent- I just didn't know it at the time.

My sparkly eyed grandfather died a year or two ago. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer, and didn't live to see winter. As he died, he called each of his grandchildren to his side. He said goodbye to each of them personally, sharing with them the story of their family, telling them about the God they loved and that he believed he would soon meet. As the patriarch of the family, he spoke to each grandchild individually, impressing upon them the importance of hard work and family pride. Each grandchild recieved a letter, a special goodbye before he left them.

Every grandchild, of course, except one.

Not quite the Brady Bunch

I don't write a lot about my brothers and sisters. I think that's because, most days, I don't acknowledge them as my siblings. Most days, I have just one brother- my adoptive parents biological son. But in reality, I share a biological mother with 8 other people on this earth. We range from ages 29 to five. Out of all of us, only 2 have remained within the biological family for their entire childhoods.  4, including myself, were placed for adoption. The rest were taken into foster care when our mother, despite her best intentions, surrendered to whatever demons plagued her.

I have only ever met 3 of my 8 siblings. I know my three sisters, two of whom are older. The younger one, who is now 18, is my full sister. I have a different relationship with each of them- ranging from stellar to nonexistant. We communicate without the intervention or involvement of our mother. And she never liked that. We are honest with one another- speaking candidly about our experiences. Our mother, terrified that we would judge her, bemoaned our communication.

"I am the mother!" she would tell us, "I need to be consulted!"

When we ignored her, explaining gently that we were all adults, and free to have relationships with whomever we choose, she would hang up the phone on us. Or, if she was feeling fiesty, she would give us an earful about what disrespectful little ingrates we were. It was always hard not to take it personally (and these episodes did, in the end, have a profound affect on my relationship with her).

One by one, she burned her bridge with each of us. Only the oldest of her children, my half sister Susan, had any sort of regular contact with her. The rest of us, wounded, did our best to forget. Pippi, who was also placed for adoption, has mastered the art of detachment. Our mother is not important- she could take her or leave her. Nicole, my full sister, has built a wall to protect herself. Our mother left her  to be raised by our father when she was three, and then popped in and out of her life. Even mentioning our mothers name unleashes such anger in her that we've all decided it's best not to bring it up.

Me? I rarely talk about her. And I've found, over the years, that people rarely ask. I am merely one of her many children, just another child that she left. It is unrealistic of me, I think, to believe that I am special to her. I am not the only child she gave up. I am not the oldest, I am not the prettiest, I am not the smartest, I am probably not the only blonde. And I'm certainly not the most compliant!

And so, I leave her be. I struggle, from afar, to understand what has happened. My mother's world was one of fantasy. She believed that fairies existed amongst the emerald hills of Ireland, that dragons inhabited the deepest caves of China. Mostly, though, she believed that her children, scattered across the globe in different families, would come back to her. That one day we would all reunite and find her. One day, all of her mistakes would be undone.

And we are coming back together. Without her. Slowly, but surely, we are fitting together the pieces of our family. In a year, Christopher will turn 18. And a few years after that, Samantha will too. And the rest will follow. I wonder if I will ever meet all of them? I wonder if they will ever want to know me. We each have different stories, different families, different lives. But we have one vital thing in common, and I guess I believe that only by coming together can we begin to understand what has torn us apart.

Secrets

Living in Italy always brings out some strange emotions in me.

As an American who happens to speak Italian, I meet a lot of new people all the time. I often feel like a sort of exotic bird (not necessarily in a good way). Meeting new people has never really daunted me. I move around a lot, and have become adept at putting myself out there, shaking new hands, kissing new faces, and making new friends. The only problem is that, invariably, my new friends will want to know about my life.

I lie for as long as it is feasible. I answer questions about my family honestly. I talk about my brother, his children, my parents and my dog. I tell my Italian friends about American traditions, about the city in which I live, and about my family's heritage. I pretend, for as long as I can, that I am not adopted. In a family of dark skinned Italians, my blonde hair and transparent skin usually give me away. But I can chalk that up to the small portion of my family that is Irish. I am 21 years younger than my brother is. I usually just try and convince people that I was a late arrival. One of the biggest reasons I live and study in Italy has to do with the fact that my adoptive family is Italian. But saying that aloud makes me feel like a fraud. My friends, always fascinated by my american documentation, ask to see my passport, which lists my city of birth. Which is clear across the country from the state and city I was raised in my entire life. I can never think of a feasible explanation for why my parents seemingly moved from NYC to Dallas just to have a baby.

But I can only keep this up this charade for so long. After a little while, I begin to feel guilty. I feel like I am hiding something. And I suppose I am. Sooner or later, though, the truth comes out. And when it does, it's always a little depressing.

Adoption does not exist in Italy as it does in the United States. Which, given the influence of the Catholic church, is rather astonishing. But when I explain to my Italian friends that I was adopted, they assume my birthparents have died. Why else would anyone not keep their own child? When I explain that not only are they still alive, but I have ongoing contact with them...the room goes silent.

As the country that surrounds vatican city, abortion is hotly debated in Italy. But adoption simply is not. The phrase 'tenere un bambino' (keeping a baby) refers not to the debate between adoption and parenting, but abortion and parenting. Here, there simply is no healthy medium. Either you kill your baby or you raise it. During a debate with my friend Cinzia, in which we discussed our oppposing views on abortion, the topic of adoption came up. Cinzia is a vehemently pro-choice, athiest, communist. She supports her right not only to abort, but to abort within a timeframe that most people would find distasteful ( 5 months + ) She said to me:

'If I get pregnant, and dont have an abortion, I will have an unhappy motherhood. Thats the only choice. Why would I condemn myself to an unahppy motherhood? It should be the joy of my life.''

When I mentioned adoption as an alternative to parenting (and hated myself for it) she got quiet. She then stated, quite simply,:

''Well...to me that seems like a terrible thing to do. To have your baby and then give it away. What kind of woman does that?''

While I was tempted to ask her what kind of woman believes that casual late terms abortions are 100% morally correct , instead I answered ''What kind of mother gives away her child? Well..mine!''

In a country where my life circumstances are incomprehensible, I struggle to defend my birthfamilys choice. I tell my Italian companions about drug addiction, about lack of family support, about money issues and about the promise of a better life. Of course, they have all those things in Italy. The same social problems exist. And yet, somehow, they are not good enough reasons to not keep your own child. When I tell them that I have reunited with my birthfamily, and that we speak often, my friends are horrified.

''They do not deserve you,'' they say. '' What right do they have? YOU were their child. They gave you away. To have contact with them is to condone what they have done. They should have wanted you. How can you love the family that has abandoned you?''

And  every time, I find that there are no easy answers. I find myself believing a little bit of what they say, subscribing to the belief that my biological family has done the unthinkable. And so I  retreat within myself. If last time it took 3 weeks for me to tell my friends the (obvious) truth about my family..next time it will take 4. And the time after that, 5.  Because although I can tell the story by heart, mimicking the words like a parrot, I cannot find any good reasons, any good excuses. Why have my parents given me away? I know the reasons. And yet when said aloud they seem shallow. And so... I am left without words, unable to explain what is incomprehensible to me.

Home

    I've been thinking about my mother (birthmother) a lot recently. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because I will be leaving the country in less than three weeks, and I'll be living abroad for at least the next year. As I prepare to start a new chapter in my life, perhaps it is inevitable that I think of her. She would love where I'm going- the 800 year old  buildings arching high above the olive groves and cobblestone streets, the beautiful language, the passion and the sensuality of the ancient city that I'll call home.


   Both of my mothers have taught me to appreciate and treasure beautiful things- to find truth and loveliness in their most simple forms, to love passionately and to feel deeply. And it is with this in mind that I try and remember the beautiful things about my birthmother- her sense of fantasy, her spiritual profoundity, her love of animals and music. I struggle, sometimes, with anger towards her. I feel unloved by her, resentful (perhaps foolishly) that she was unable to overcome her addictions and be my mother. But within the past few months I have been trying to live compassionately, to foster only feelings of compassion and love for the mother who, I know, would have given anything to have raised me.


She lived in a sort of alternative universe. When I would spend time with her, or speak to her by phone, she rarely asked me about my adoptive parents, or my life within my family. To her, time had not passed- I was still her baby, her sweet infant who needed and relied on her. She would do most of the talking. She never discussed the past, or my other siblings. She would tell me only about the beautiful things in her life- the stray kitten she found and nursed back to health, the nice man she met at mass, the beautiful flowers that grew outside of her apartment building. She would tell me what a beautiful baby I was, how my skin and hair were as white as frost.  I rarely asked questions about the past. I knew that she didn't like talking about it, I knew that she could not bear to face the consequences of the choices she made.  The  last time I spoke to her,however, she came close to telling me about my relinquishment and adoption. She began the story- described the last time we were together as mother and daughter.She described the blanket she gave me, and the small stuffed cat.


"After you left," she said "I stood by the door for hours. I knew that you were miles away, on  the way to your new life.  But I couldn't bear to leave the door. I didn't want to see you go. I just didn't want to see you go."


My mother lived in a world of her own creation. One where we were still mother and daughter, one without drugs or prison or sadness or separation. She often talked to me about her dreams for our future- about how one day we would be together as a family. One day she and my birthfather, together with me and my siblings,  would all be together- living together as the family we were meant to be. "One day," she told me, " I hope you will come home."


So as I prepare to leave the country of my birth, as I prepare to begin a new chapter of my life in a new city, I cannot help but feel that I am leaving her behind. I cannot help but miss her, as I continue  to live my life without her.  One of the last times I saw her, my birth mother gave me a small porcelain angel. It is creamy white, roughly the size of my palm- a small cherub on his knees praying. There are a few glue marks where the porcelain has been roughly glued together, due to a few falls. But despite how delicate it is, I know I will bring it with me to Italy. I bring it everywhere I go. It will sit on my nightstand, as it always does, reminding me  every evening to stay mindful, to notice the beauty around me.  I never told my mother that I would not be coming home to her. I couldn't bring myself to tell her, even though somehow I have a feeling she already knew. But I'll bring the little cherub with me, as a reminder of the many gifts she gave me.  I'll bring it so that, in some small way, she's always with me- present not only within my bones and my skin and the iris of my eyes, but within the air around me. In some small way, she'll always be with me- home together.

Loss.

It took a long time for me to admit that being adopted had caused me to lose something. It took me years- and even to this day, 10 years into reunion, its something that people just don’t want to hear about.

“But you have a family who loves you now,” they tell me. And that’s true.
“But you are better of with the family who adopted you” people say. And there is definitely some validity to that statement.

But in general, I am able to brush off these comments. What could people who aren’t in my situation possibly understand about how it has affected me? But recently, a conversation with my birth sister, Pippi, struck me. She too was placed for adoption, a few years before I was. We share a birthmother but not a birthfather. She is very strongly against adoptee rights, claiming that birthparents should be entitled to absolute privacy, should they choose to request it. If the birthparents don’t want to be found, she says, then adoptees should have no right to seek them out. We often debate this, as my own viewpoints are radically different. But in these conversations, it always comes down to one crucial concept: Loss.

Pippi simply does not believe she has lost anything by being placed for adoption, and thus has no invested interest in knowing our birthparents. After all, she explains, she has parents. She does not feel that her birthparents have anything to offer. She’s happy to be alive, grateful that our birthmother made the courageous choice to have us, and also happy that she made the right choice by placing us for adoption.

I find a lot of aspects of her point of view hard to swallow. Grateful? Courageous choice? She sees our birthmother, for all intensive purposes, as a vessel- the courageous but ill prepared woman who brought her into this world so she could be raised by her *real* parents.

I love Pippi, and though I do not agree, I respectfully agree to disagree. But her words really have me thinking- how can this loss that I feel so deeply completely not affect her? She sees meeting our birthparents as something to do out of mere curiosity, something that can be done without emotional consequence. Whereas I have devoted years of my life trying to fit my birthparents into my world, trying to heal what has been broken. Its not that Pippi likes her adoptive parents and I do not. We both have close, fulfilling families. It’s not that Pippi fits in better with her family than I do with mine. In fact, its probably the opposite! So what is it. What makes this loss so real to me and so foreign to her?

Adoption has given me many great things. But in order to have a family who wanted and could provide for me, I had to lose a great deal.  I feel it in BOTH of my families. When my nephews were born and my whole family marveled about who they look like, and I was absent from the conversation. When my family talks about ancestral heritage, of coming from Sicily and Ireland to Brooklyn- and I realize that one some level I am not a part of that history. I feel it when I speak to my birth family, when they talk about times past- dinners tables that I didn’t sit at, love and a sense of belonging that I wasn’t around to experience. I feel the loss when my birthfather recounts the story of my birth, when I read the letters my birthmother wrote to me when I was a baby but never sent, when I see photos of them holding my baby sister- born only a few years after I- loved, cherished, kept. I feel this loss. I feel it everyday. I even feel it when I am with Pippi, and we laugh about some shared joke, or marvel over some shared feature, and I think:

“We could have lived our lives together as sisters. What has happened to our family that we grew up 1,000 miles apart?”

I don’t wish that I hadn’t been adopted. It would be simpler if I could say that I do, but it just isn’t so. And that’s what makes this loss so strange, so difficult to articulate. Because it’s not one that I would change, or do-over. And maybe that’s what Pippi doesn’t feel, maybe that’s what she can’t see. Maybe she doesn't understand that we can love each other, that we can feel sadness without taking away from our joy and our love of our adoptive families.

Maybe I’m just fanciful, or overly sensitive. Maybe I should be a little more like Pippi- able to overlook the bad and focus on the good. But when I am with her, and I look into her face- I see a reflection of myself. I feel happy that we have found each other, overjoyed that we have lived good lives, that we are happy, that we are loved. But I also feel a twinge of sadness- because I spent the first 20 years of my life without her -this spunky, sassy, strong woman who is my sister- and a part of me feels that we should have known each other all along. I look into her eyes, and I feel the loss of “what could have been”, and it makes me a little sad to know that she does not feel the same thing when she gazes into mine.

Regret.

I am stealing this topic from thanksgivingmom, in response to her post about regret.


And here's the truth: I have always wanted my birth family to regret their decision to place me.

Even as I write those words, I am aware of how they make me sound.  The desire for someone else to have regrets is not a proud one, and yet I can’t seem to shake that feeling. I  am constantly torn between my wish for my birthparents to forgive themselves and my desire to feel missed by them, to be wanted by them. My birthparents, both of them, have expressed regret over their choice to place me.

And I admit, though not without being ashamed , that it feels good. My birthparents regret over placing me makes me feel good…and is that so surprising? It does not stem from some sort of sadistic desire to make them “pay” for choosing not to raise me, but instead from a desire to be wanted, to be missed, by the family that chose to expel me.

My birthfather particularly comes to mind. He is a large, strong, burly man- and to see him reduced to tears when talking about my relinquishment has always given me a sort of bittersweet feeling. Because if he does not feel regret, if he does not feel sadness- then what does that mean for me? If the family that I was born into feels no sadness over my loss, over my absence in their lives, then I am meaningless- someone who came but who did not belong, someone who has left, but whose absence has not been felt.

I want to know that I meant something, that they thought of me, that they yearned for me as I have yearned for them.

And yet these feelings are complex. I love my birthfather.  I want so desperately to take away his sadness. I want to hold his large, rough hands. I want to hug him and tell him that it’s okay, that I’m okay. I am happy, I am loved. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to feel sad anymore. I want to thank him for what he has given me.  I don’t offer him my forgiveness…because I am not sure he needs it. I only want him to forgive himself.

I once lost my family of origin. And even though I am now in reunion, even though we have technically found each other, there is something that we can not obtain. Our roles of parent and child have been lost forever. And although I have tried to deny it, and bury it, it is a loss that I cannot escape. I don’t want my birth family to regret having placed me, because the road of regret is a long one, that has no destination. But it is reassuring to know that the sadness I feel is real, even though I can acknowledge that my adoption was the best choice at that time.

I don't know that I will ever have the courage to tell my birthfather how I feel. I want so desperately to protect him from my feelings of sadness, of loss. Because I know that he will blame himself.  Other people have told me that he has revealed to them that he regrets placing me, that he would take me back in an instant, that he fantasizes, even over 20 years later, about me one day deciding to "come home".

We shield one another from our own, private sadness. The regret that neither of us think we should feel.
I do not want him to take on my burden, and I know he does not want me to carry his. One day I hope that we will be honest with one another, that we will share our hurt, our regrets, our feelings on losing one another.  Because only once we understand what we have lost can we look for a way to find one another again.

The Space Between...

It looks as if the visit isn’t going to happen. Surprisingly enough, it has nothing to do with my end. I called my birthfather over this weekend, informing him of the death of my aunt (who he had met on more than one occasion) and he told me that he probably would not be able to make it up North to visit. His work, paired with his stepdaughters wedding, would make it hard for him to get away. I was disappointed, of course. I had finally gotten used to the idea, and was even looking forward to it. I was hopeful about what this would mean for our relationship. But it looks like any visit will have to be put off until next summer, once I return to the USA.

His reasons are totally valid. I get it. And yet somehow I can’t help but wonder if its some sort of excuse, if he is just making up some reasons to not see me. Isn’t that silly of me? He has wanted to have a visit for a long time. He has never done anything to give me the impression that he doesn’t want me in his life. In fact, quite the opposite. And yet I can’t shake these feelings of “Oh God… he’s going to disappear!”

I know that even now, after 10 years, there is still that element of caution in our reunion. My birthfather usually allows me to call him, not the other way around. He tells me that he does not want to disturb me. I always gladly pick up the phone when I see his name on my caller ID, I always respond quickly to his voicemails…and he does the same for me. And yet he is afraid to bother me. He has never been anything but constant in his relationship with me, and yet I am afraid that he does not want to see me again, nervous that he is making up excuses to avoid coming to visit.

How does this happen? Our relationship, that was once so primal, is now so strained. For seemingly no reason! How does this happen- immediate family members struggling to bridge the distance, to close the gaps, to make up for the years we surrendered and lost. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if reunion isn’t just a sad, partner less dance : two groups of people moving in different circles- desperately trying to recreate a link that once existed.

By now I think both my birthfather and I know that it’s impossible- that the bonds that have been broken between us can never be repaired, not fully. I think we both know that the identity I was born into has long disappeared- that the baby who was once his daughter is now grown up, a woman who has created an existence around his absence, one that he can never fully have access to.

This is one of the saddest parts of reunion, I think. I can’t presume to speak for him, but I can speak for myself. It seemingly is not important what we do, how we act. No matter how many times we visit each other, no matter how many long and involved conversations we have, no matter how many beautiful moments we spend together- it seems that subconsciously we return to that one pivotal moment. It seems that no matter how many times we reach out and find the other person waiting for us, loving us- we can never forget that one time when we reached out and were left grappling- yearning for a love that we were never supposed to miss.

Mother's Day

I thought about my birthmother on mothers day. I really did. I even picked up my old photo album and flipped through the pages. On those pages there are plenty of numbers, spanning back about 6 or 7 years. I would keep her numbers in my photo album, never in my address book- afraid someone would open it and see. There are a lot of numbers, all with different area codes. She never kept numbers for long. She never kept residences for long. She rolled about like a tumbleweed- forever moving, forever elusive.


I though about her all throughout the day. As I delicately wrapped the gifts I had purchased for my own mother-  an eclectic middle eastern style necklace, some boxes of 85% cocoa chocolate, and other various knickknacks I had collected over the past month. I thought about her when I baked the mothers day cake, when I trimmed off the edges to make the cake into the shape of a heart, when I iced it with nutella.


I try to imagine what it would have been like to call her, to speak to her. I can hardly remember her voice now, I can’t even tell you what she sounds like. Would she have been  high, or drunk? Would she have been happy to hear from me, or angry like last time?


I know my other siblings don’t think about her.
“She was never a mother to us,” said one, even though she was not placed . “She’s not MY mother. She dug her own hole, now she lies in it. Everything bad in her life she created herself.”


And it is, isn’t it? I make a lot of excuses for my birthmother. At the end of the day, she’s just like the rest of us. She lived the life she chose- free of obligation and care. She lived the way she wanted but she paid a terrible price. And so did her children. Every one of us.


We’re getting together now…slowly. 3 out of 9 are over the legal age. In a few months the 4th will join us, and then the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. By 2024 the last of her children will have turned 18. I wonder if they will try and find me, or one of the other siblings. I wonder what I can say to them to ease their way, to soothe their hurt. How can I explain our mother to them- in all of her radiant, yet disastrous beauty? Love and its weakness. How can I tell  them that she loved us but didn’t protect us, mothered but didn’t parent, tried but didn’t succeed, fought but never won? Love and its failure.


I thought about her on Mother’s day. And maybe I shouldn’t have. But either way, wherever she is- I hope she felt it. So here’s a quiet happy mothers day- to the mother who gave me every day of my life.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

Useless.

In  a recent conversation with an Italian friend, a novel concept was brought to light. He knew I was adopted, but we had never really discussed the subject at length. It’s just something that doesn’t exist in the same capacity in Italy, so unless we are discussing my particular situation, it’s unlikely to ever come up. Due to the impending visit from my birth family, however, I felt like talking. Andrea, as always, was willing to listen. Our relationship is mostly academic- we compare and analyze various linguistic concepts- never tiring of marveling over the ways our two different languages break down and compare. I always want to better my Italian, and he is just as eager to better his English. But in that moment, we decided to discuss something far less concrete. Why was I nervous about having my birthparents visit? And perhaps more crucially: why on earth were they visiting in the first place, after they had placed me for adoption?


I couldn’t explain it. Not immediately, not in the way I wanted too. My gut response was “but…they are my biological parents. They made me. How can that not be important?” Andrea didn’t see it. Sure, they created me. But that’s “ALL” they did. People have sex all the time. People have babies all the time. The act of reproduction, in and of itself, is not all that special or significant, at least not on any larger scale. It’s all so common. What’s NOT common, however, is the next step. Having a baby and then giving it away. The act of “giving” is very skewed in an adoption context. It’s not common, and it’s not what is generally considered “natural”. The purposeful separation of mother and child goes against all our primal instincts, all of our hearts desires and innate reactions. What mother or father wants to leave their baby, and what baby wants to be left?


And so it is not the creating or the having or the producing that is complex. It is the leaving. It is the separation. It is not what my birthparents DID, that confuses everyone. It’s what they DIDN’T do. I was conceived and born, just as every other child in the world. But that is where I separate from the rest. That is where we, as adoptees and birthparents, separate. There are some days when I feel like this loss, the fact that the people who created me and whose blood I share did not want to raise me, is so deep that  I can never escape it.  And on some level I know that it can never go away. Nothing can ever make me their child again. Not even the best, longest, most well planned out reunion in the world. I will forever be that baby- conceived but not wanted, born but not welcomed, with a mother and father but no parent to be found. 


And so as the visit with my birth family approaches, and I grapple to understand what it will mean for out relationship, I am filled with a sense of rage, of sadness, of compassion, and confusion. What have they done? What have I done? What could they have done, what could have been different, what quality could I have possessed that would have changed the outcome? 


I know that it is not my fault. I know that I was not given away for other people to raise because I was bad, ugly, stupid, or worthless. But its hard, some days, to feel worthy. I know that the life I have created for myself, the life that my adoptive family and I share, has worth. I know that it is special, irreplaceable, and I know that I am loved. But on a primal level, on the level of my being, I feel that I am lacking. And why is that surprising? Was it not for my very existence that I was cast-off into the world and out of the family who brought me into it?


How do we reunite, the leaving and the left? Why do we reunite? Sometimes I feel like reunification gave me the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the piece of myself that I lost. Other times I feel like it is just a superficial bandage on a wound too profound to ever heal completely. Or possibly, as my friend pointed out, I'm trying to heal a wound that isn't really there to begin with. 

Possible visit...

     

   This picture was taken the first time I ever had a visit with my birthfamily. I was not yet a teen when this photo was taken ( and apparently I had never cut my hair??).  I saw them many times after that ...but it has now been 5 years since I saw them last. I speak to my birthfather often, and it is very possible that I will see him this summer. Due to my impending move out of the country, he and his wife (not my birthmother ) have expressed interest in seeing me, always indirectly. The other day, he finally came right out and suggested it. A week or so would be perfect, he said.. in early June- just as the weather in his state is becoming intolerable- the relative cool of New York City would be a welcome retreat. He would come for a week or so, stay in a hotel near my house with his wife and daughter, my birthsister. I know that he has asked to come to me because I would not be welcome at their home. His mother, now old and frail after the death of her husband, lives near them- and I know that she doesn't not want to have to face me again before she leaves this earth. She prefers to leave me, along with the mistakes of her son, behind.

    I've been avoiding them for years, evading this moment as cleverly as I could- shoving them farther and farther behind me, eager to leave them behind. I understand my grandmother's dilemma- it can sometimes be so tempting to bury the ones who have hurt us, to distance ourselves from the loves that failed us.

   I wear my anger comfortably now-  the cast out child, the one who, for better or for worse, has to look in from the outside. How would it be to take off my anger for a while, to expose myself? I have reified them- conceptualized them to the point of mere entities. The members of my birthfamily are not real people to me anymore. Ghosts now, they roam outside the peripherals of my life. How would it be, now, to see them in the flesh? My flesh. To look again into the eyes of people whose faces mirror my own, to reunite with the clan to whom I can never fully belong?

  The idea terrifies me. They want to see me, they say. Just once more before I leave the country again, just once more before I become virtually in-findeable. I know that their intentions are good, I know that my birthfather wants to see me so badly. I don't understand his love for me, though I find it flattering. But this love that I have not earned, that I perhaps do not deserve, makes me uneasy. I feel guilty for having such a hold on him. How can he want to see me so badly? What is this connection between us? I feel guilty for this nonreciprocating devotion, the eagerness in his voice when we talk about a possible visit. My own hesitance.

  I could make up an excuse. I will be busy this summer. Between embassy visits, packing, organizing, studying and apartment browsing- my summer is fairly packed. It would not be a lie to say I cannot fit it in. I could politely decline, make half hearted promises about a visit in a year or two, when I return to the USA. I could escape- leave the country and return to my haven amongst the olive trees and the blood red oranges. I could bathe my feet in the warm waters of the sea, lie on the sand and walk on the stones of a country where I am free--untangled from the short life that I lived before the one I have now. I could escape without ever having to look my past in the face.

What should I do?

Anger..where does it come from?

I found this post about angry adoptees on a birthmother blog ring on Suz's blog. Needless to say, I was curious, and when I went to read what was being written , I was a little perturbed, to say the least. But not for the reason one might expect.



There are a lot of birthparents out there in blogland, some of whom I have spoken with at length, who really wanted to keep their children, who would have gone to the ends of the earth had they been able to.I’d even go so far as to say that they are the majority. They are seemingly baffled about why their children do not want anything to do with them, surprised when their children retreat, pull away, or disappear. Although I see the injustice of their actions, I am not particularly surprised.



Those birthparents are offended, and why shouldn’t they be? The children they worried about and cared about for years, even from a distance, are not what they expected. They are not receiving the welcome they had dreamed of. But I think they are making the mistake of mixing up intentions with results, logistics with feeling. While my birthparents relinquished me because they truly did not want to raise me, I know that for many birthparents this is not the case. And yet….there is little difference between myself and the children whose birthparents wanted them. We were all placed, we all know the sting of original rejection, original abandonment, even though in many cases there was really no rejection, no real abandonment. But it doesn’t matter. We can hear the story 100 times about how much our parents wanted us, about how hard our relinquishment was difficult, how we were loved. But that does not change the next part of the equation, that does not remove the “but” that invariably comes after protestations of undying love.
“We loved you, we wanted you, you were cherished and special and nothing was wrong with you…BUT we placed you for adoption anyway.”

The people who brought us into this world did not want to or could not raise us- regardless of the reason. The intentions, however bad or honorable, do not change the outcome for us. We were adopted, cut off from our heritage, family of origin, from our roots. And I have yet to see a reunion that can close that gap, that can bridge us back together. And yet we are expected to be grateful, we are expected to be open and unreserved with our love and affection, we are expected to say “thank you” , to include them in our lives, to value them as indispensable people in our lives.

But yet we are eternally aware of our own dispensability, our own sense of inadequacy. I sympathize with birthparents whose children treat them in a bad way. Some of the things I read on that blog disgusted me (guest towels? Really?). I am embarrassed when I see adoptees entering into reunions, and then taking out their anger (however justifiable) on their unsuspecting birthparents. It is not fair and it is not right. But neither is it right to classify we adoptees as cold hearted, insensitive, or uncaring.  I know how they feel, those adoptees.  I know the anger, the one we seemingly cannot justify.

I care for my birthfather, I might even love him..but I will always hold back a part of myself. I will always be on reserve, be on alert- certain that if I do anything wrong, he will leave me again. It is that insecurity that feeds this anger, the fear of being hurt, of being left again. Sometimes we decide to jump ship first, though I don’t find it particularly admirable. Some of us lash out, while others keep it all inside. I will never tell my birthfather about these ugly feelings I have. It is not his burden to bear. But on some level I never want to let him get too close. He had his chance at loving me , at having me in my entirety. He had his chance to be my dad, and he let it go. He let me go. I ache when I think of his pain, his regret.

 But there is a deeper part, a less forgiving part, that remembers how it felt to be relinquished, that is convinced that no matter what my birthparents say, they gave me to someone else, they gave me away. And there’s a part of me, perhaps even a part of “us”, that can never forget that.

Forgiveness.

        At one point during my reunion, my birthfather apologized to me. I was caught of guard. I had never considered that placing me for adoption was something for which he should be sorry. I wanted him to regret it, I guess, on some fucked up level- because I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to know that my absence wasn’t as easy as he had thought it would be when he signed those papers. I wanted to matter to him, to all of them. I never really expressed my feelings to him, not totally, never in their entirety. He knew that my relinquishment and subsequent reunion had a profound affect on me, but on some level I’ve never felt like it was his burden to bear. So when he apologized to me, when he asked for my forgiveness….I was momentarily silenced.


“I have robbed you of something vital, something irreplaceable. I know that you feel like you belong with your family, and you do. Nurture is just a much a part of you as nature. But… I’ve always felt that even though they raised you, you were still mine. You are my daughter, and I have taken your biological family from you. I have robbed you of something precious. I hope that I have not hurt you too much. I am sorry.

He never uses the word regret. He never outright says that he would change it if he could. He uses a lot of phrases like “ what was best at the time,” and “thought I was making the right decision.”

 I want so desperately to understand him. He is a large man, muscular and tall. He has tan skin and a head full of wavy, thick hair. He is gruff and speaks in a gravely voice. And yet, when I see him, when I speak to him, I hear the tones of a wounded man, of a man who can never take back what he’s done, whose life has gone so far off the course that was expected of him- that he expected of himself. My adoption was not coerced, it was not forced- certainly not on the part of my birthfather, who was instrumental in my relinquishment. I know that he did it on purpose, that on the day I was born, he looked at me and made the decision to remove me from his life. I want so badly to reassure him, to soothe his pain, to tell him that I understand. Even though I don’t.

I know that I have lost something, I know that something inside of me is broken, missing…something that not even reunion can restore. And yet, my adoption has worked. I am happy, loved, cherished. But I can’t help wonder -was this how my life was meant to be? In order to gain the life I love- was I destined to lose everything?



I am hurt and angry that I was placed and my other siblings were not. I am sad that I, as his first child, was not loved and cherished and wanted. I am hurt that I feel this never ending sense of inadequacy. I hate that no matter how successful I am, no matter how many people tell me that they love me , I know that I am inherently flawed in some way, that my first parents giving me up has done something irreparable to me. And yet, there is a part of me that loves him, that cannot stand to hurt him. I could never tell him these things. He does not deserve to feel sad, to feel regret. I hear his steely resolve cracking when he speaks about relinquishing me, the pain in the cadences of his voice. I know that he will carry the weight of his choice for the rest of his life.

He was once my father. He gave me up, but he has also given me a gift. I know that I owe him one in return.


“Forgive you?” I say. “Rest easy, Paulo, there is nothing to forgive.”

My Story Part 2- Glimpses

part II - glimpses of my life before reunion

I am six, and rummaging through the junk drawer in the kitchen. I find a pile of photos, wrapped together with a rubber band. I bring them to my mother, and ask her what they are. They are not photos, she explains to me, but various postcards and funeral announcements. There are small laminated cards with various depictions of the Virgin Mary, some dating back over 75 years. There is a small laminate of Johannes Vermeer's “Girl with the pearl earring”. I ask my mother who this woman is, and she tells me that nobody knows who she really is. She is a mystery. Later on that night, I sneak into the kitchen and find that little card. I take it into my room, and hide it in my top drawer, underneath my white laced undershirts and Barbie socks. It will be years, still, until I see my birthmothers photograph. Until that day, whenever my adoption is discussed, and I wrack my brain in an attempt to conjure up an image of the woman who was my mother.. I picture Vermeer’s famous portrait. I don’t think my mother ever notices that it’s gone missing. I take it out when nobody is looking, and stare into the woman’s eyes, though her gaze never meets my own.


-----------------------


My parents are taking me to therapy. I am uncomfortable discussing my adoption, and they worry. I am eight years old. I sit with my parents in the doctor’s dark office. She is kind to me and offers me markers and a pad of paper. I talk to her while I sketch a lion, a tree, a zebra and a cupcake. She asks me to draw my family. I do it. It is an accurate depiction- myself, my father, my mother, my brother, and my cats. My parents are silent beside me.
            “What about your birthparents?” she asks me, using their first names. I freeze. “Why don’t we talk about them for a while?”
            I shake my head no. She asks me why. I shake my head no again. “This is the elephant in the room,” explains the doctor. I don’t know what this means but I picture a large, pink elephant standing between us. They ask me again, “what about Francesca and Paulo?” she asks. Let’s talk about them. I close my ears and say loudly, “ I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.” At hearing my birthparents names again, I run through the door, out of the lobby, and outside into the cold. I climb up a small pine tree right outside the office. I expect my parents to show up any moment. I can see them through the office window. They can see me. I turn away, and face the parking lot. The sun begins to set. They do not follow me, they do not demand that I come down. I tree bark is rough against my cheek. I do not say a word.
-----------------------
The bark bench is warm. I am sitting with my mother and some of her friends. I long to go on the monkey bars, where my friends are, but I have to finish my lunch first. I sit listlessly in the heat, munching on watermelon, listening to my mom and the other mothers chat. They are talking about the days their children were born. They go into detail, about the months proceeding, about the hospital stay. My own mother is curiously quiet. She smiles, and listens intently to what the others have to say. I finish my watermelon, and throw the rind to the dusty ground. I almost get up to leave, when I see my mothers face. I sit back down. I scoot a little closer to her, touch her hand. We do not make eye contact. She squeezes my hand ever so slightly, a reassurance.

-----------------------
I ask a lot of questions. What is my birthmother like? She is very beautiful. My birthfather? Strong and handsome. These come easily to my mother, who chops garlic and basil and drops them into the blender. We are making pesto. I pluck the basil leaves off the stems. The air is fragrant, summer time. The fan is on low, gentle breeze that cools us off just enough. My father is in the living room behind us, watching jeopardy. Occasionally, he yells out an answer. “Did they love me?” I ask. My mother does not stop chopping. “Yes they did, very much.” I pluck a few more leaves, my mother tells me to leave the rest on the plant, that we have enough. That if we pluck too many the plant will die. “But they gave me away.” I say. My mother stops chopping. She places down the knife, turns to me. “ They couldn’t raise any baby at that time, they placed you for adoption because they weren’t ready to be parents.” I am silent. I pluck a leaf off the basil plant. My mother does not chastise me.
     “But..you said they loved me,” I whisper.
      “They did”
       “But they gave me away.” I hear that my father has muted the TV in the next room. He is listening.
       “Grownup problems are difficult,” she says, wiping her hands on her dark green apron, “they had grownup problems that had nothing to do with you.” I smile and my mother smiles back. I am unconvinced.
-----------------------

I do not tell my friends that I am adopted. Finally, one day, in my 4th grade class, I let it slip. I tell my 4 best friends. They are astonished, they beg to know the details. Were you in an orphanage? Why didn’t anyone want you? Overwhelmed, I try and take it back, try to convince them that I was joking. They give me a strange look. I insist that it was a joke.


----------------------

I do not watch a lot of TV. I watch a lot of PBS and BBC. One day , there is an Italian production of the play “Romeo e Giulietta.” I am engrossed. My mother comes in and sees what I am watching. I do not understand all of the Italian, so I ask her to tell me the story. She does, and I am astounded grotesquely fascinated with it. Two people who fell in love but shouldn’t have. Two people who made mistakes, who paid the ultimate price. I feel sorry for them. I tell my mother this and she smiles a little bit.
     “Oh Romeo and Juliet….a pair of stupid teenagers!” I am quiet. “They acted rashly,” continues my mother, “ we cannot feel sorry for them- they made their foolish choices. Really we feel bad for their families. ”
     “Still, I feel sad for them. I say, tentatively. I understand that Juliet and Romeo cannot take back what they‘ve done. How would things have been different if they‘d only known how permanent their decision was? How permanent. How foolish.
     “Sometimes it takes losing everything to realize what you had,” my mother says. I have a feeling she is not really speaking to me.
     “I bet the families wish they had just let them be together,” I say, decisively.
     “ Mmm,” my mother murmers, “I bet you’re right.”


-----------------------
I have mentioned wanting to meet my birthparents on more than one occasion. I was always told that I could, when I was a little older. So when I am still in middle school, and my mother nonchalantly asks me if I’d like to know my birthfather while we are returning from the grocery store, I am too shocked to speak.
  “He has written you a letter,” she says. “ I have it at home.”
     I think. By now I have a few photos of them, from a few days before I was born. My birthmother is breathtaking, with long , dark auburn hair and creamy skin. Her lips are a deep, red color. Her fingernails are painted to match. In the photo she stands next to my birthfather, who is large and strong looking. He has deep golden hair that curls, and is dressed sharply in khaki pants and a polo shirt. He has his arm around her shoulder. I know that my parents are the ones taking the picture. They photo is at a distance, and I strain my eyes to see them up close. My birthfather stands up straight, he smiles right at the camera. He is confident. My birthmother does not. She is facing the camera, but looking slightly to her right. She does not look directly into the lens, her attention is elsewhere. She is like this in all of the pictures- elusive, always slightly out of reach. She is not smiling.



We are driving and the air is warm and the sun is calm. We pull into our driveway.
     “The letter is here?” I ask, “right now?”
     “Yes,” my mother says, “ would you like to read it? Maybe write him a letter back?” I do not hesitate.
     “Yes,” I say. And I open the door.