Sometimes I start feeling like I am alone in this and ther is nothing more I can add to a discussion. Maybe I have said everything I have to say. Maybe we do just get through the hard parts day by day and by ourselves. Then I get a comment. I find out that something I wrote strikes a chord and maybe will make a difference. I am starting to understand that the adoptees are a lot more open. We keep our fears to ourseves. Thats what we think we are supposed to do. After all, we know that it is our fault. We are the ones who made the decision even if we really didn't have a choice or believed that we didn't have one. Our children didn't get a choice. I don't think that anyone who is reading this really believes they made a good choice, just the only choice we thought we had. It doesn't matter why we made that choice, it only matters that we did. We can come up with a lot of reasons or excuses but it comes back to the fact that we signed those damned papers. Can we forgive ourselves for that. Can our children forgive us for that. I wish I knew. The duck and I are in a better place. Maybe she is learning to trust. Maybe she is learning that I do love her and have since before she was born. Maybe she will never really believe it. Maybe she will never really understand what she means to me but just maybe she will. Thats what keeps me goimg, maybe she will. One thing I have learned is that is not good to hide the hurt from our children. We try to protect them and don't want to tell them that it hurt us too. It sounds so sefish. After all, we were the decision makers. What right do we have to say we hurt too. I have come to understand that by not telling them we are saying that it was easy. They are the ones with problems, not us. We want to protect them but they don't need protection. They need the truth. That makes us face the truth. I wish that someone had told me the truth 39 years ago. Maybe I wanted to believe that I was doing 'the right thing for THE child'. It would be so much easier if it were true. Now I know it is a lie. Why didn't I know it then. Why do women still believe the lie.
So, enough about me for the moment. My daughter is OK. Her husband (dare I write my son-in-law) is fine. It was very scary but turned out OK. I am glad I was there for her. I wish that I could have been with her instead of a voice on the phone.
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3 comments:
You are not alone. We have been told over and over to just forget about it and go on with our lives. It is still hard to tell everyone as some say now "how could you have done that?" and "you should be glad that she is back in your life."
To this day I feel it was really my choice but if I listen to my brain it tells me I DID NOT have any choice and neither did my child. We did not have the golden band and even if we did the early birth was enough to start the nasty rumours and it would have been even worse for our children if we had in some way (unknown how) been able to keep them, the name calling at schools (welfare useless bastards etc).
Your daughter can see and understand but I know that you still feel that quilt as do I. It is a deep in the marrow quilt that we do and did not deserve.
I keep thinking that the people who GOT our children can not but know the circumstances behind their gain and so can not be quiltless in this whole wicked scheme.
Glad you're both back.
As awkward and worrisome as the truth seems to be sometimes, we really do have to have it.
Hi Duck and Rat,
This is K's mom.
I have read over and over and over my adoption papers I signed when reliquishing my daughter K. It seems to me all these years later (when MY thoughts, ideas and opinion are in my mature, grown up head) that NOWHERE on those papers do I see or did I sign away that fact that K WAS and IS MY DAUGHER and nor do I see anywere on those frigging papers my signature signing away my RIGHT TO LOVE MY CHILD. All I did was sign some papers that gave legal rights and parental rights while my child is/was a minor. IT IS SOCIETY that has judged us harshly and by society I mean every single person who has judged a single pregnanat woman, a woman with no finacial means, a divorced woman, any woman who found herself pregant outside of SOMEBODY's idea of morality. THOSE people are wrong and continue to be wrong. And they need to be stopped. NOW.
I live in Canada and just the other day our Federal Goverment on behalf of our Prime Minister publicy apologized to the First Nations People of this country who were ripped away from their parents, families, culture and sent to Residential Schools, where many, many of the suffered terribly as did the parents and relatives of these children. The impact of the Goverment of Canada doing this from the 1800's right up to the 1970 have caused a tragic impact to these families for GENERATION. Society accepted what the Goverment did. When I listened to the apology, I cried so hard because while I don't mean to minimize the plight of the First Nations people, in my opinion, after what I and many other have experienced regarding adoption, OUR GOVERNMENTS OWE US ONE FUCK OF AN APOLOGY.....
Thanks for letting me vent,
Shelley.
K's mom
I feel much better now........
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