Remembering my daughter on her birthday

Jane and Lorraine, 7/25/83  NYTimes photo

Today is my daughter's birthday, but of course the correct syntax is "would have been" her birthday if she had not died in 2007. What runs through my mind in crazy seemingly random fashion are images of the two of us together: the second time you came off the plane to visit Tony, my husband, and me in New York. You were planning to spend the summer with us. What a surprise to see that you had lightened your mousy blond hair (that was so like my mousy blond) to look a lot more like mine! Highlighted! Yes, I was thrilled to see that. You were my daughter, through and through. Was that the visit that we went to the Statue of Liberty and were the first off the boat from Manhattan and first up the stairs as we scrambled up to the crown? We both enjoyed that, and joked about it over the years.

I see us hanging out downtown in Sag Harbor, at the pier, with our first dog, Fred, a friendly female lab, and just, well, just enjoying the view with the water, the boats, the sunshine and reveling in being with each other, after so many years apart.


We had lots of fun shopping for clothes for you--remember that black pin-striped suit we found for you at Loehmann's? I remember taking in the joy in your face in the mirror as we stood there admiring the person you were that day. I would have bought the same suit for myself if there had been another; we wore the same size, we like the same styles. You had just turned sixteen. We stopped at a Pizza Hut on the way home. I don't know what we talked about but I do know we had a great time. I remember lots of other shopping excursions, buying you clothes, seeing what went with what. You often used the word, "sharp," describing clothes you liked. And I remember you saying that shopping with with me was something you were aware of missing because your other mother didn't have time (she had three boys to look after) but really, you and I knew that she didn't enjoy taking the care you and I did with what we wore. (What tense to use? Present or past, I am still here.)

Hearing stuff like that was always bittersweet--sweet because it made me feel closer to you, because it reminded me of how you were like me, despite the adoption, despite us being apart after you were born--but bitter because our separation denied us both safety, sanity, a sense of belonging to each other.

Forsythia for Jane, 2012

There are so many other things: you and I loving restaurants on the top floor of skyscrapers--who cares if they are full of tourists and the food is not great--because we liked the view; sitting outside on top of the World Trade Center one balmy afternoon for a half hour when you could do that; learning we had both been painting benches for our own back yards at about the same time; discovering that just like me you can't snap your fingers on your left hand, no matter how hard you try. One day you told me that you understood how difficult it would have been for me to keep you, how hard it would have been with your epilepsy and my lack of a large bank account--Sweetie, that was a precious moment, it seemed to me that you did understand and accept what happened, how it happened, without censoring me, yet expressing a certain sorrow at what was--for both of us. Your words felt like redemption. And always I recall your reaction when Tony remarked to you--after climbing the stairs at our house--"You walk just like Lorraine."  You said that his offhand observation made you feel that you had really come home. Your adoptive father was always asking, you said--"Couldn't you have a lighter step, Jane?" Well, no, it turns out you couldn't. In so many ways that seem inexplicable to those who deny biology, we were alike. And of course, I recognized your biological father in you too. As e.e. cummings wrote...Jesus he was a handsome man....

My mother, Jane, her daughter, and Lorraine                       April 1995

I miss being able to call you and find out what you are doing tonight, to celebrate with your husband. Or what you made for dinner last night, or how you are doing in the darts league or how the planning for the epilepsy foundation benefit is going this year, or god knows, the millions of tiny little things--recognitions and murmurs of the heart--that made up our relationship over the more than quarter of a century we had with each other.

Today's a regular lava flow of memories, Honey. The forsythia bush in the back yard planted for you is in full blazing bloom, just as forsythia was when you were born 46 years ago. My friend, Christy Bulkeley, sped me to the hospital just around now as I had contractions. Christ they hurt! She was hoping that I didn't give birth in the car, and as I looked out the window I remember seeing rows of bright yellow forsythia along the roadside. You were born two hours later.

Of course we had our differences, your inchoate anger that came out every now and then when you would just back away for long months of silences. That hurt too, as much as the physical pain, but in a different way. Then you would be back with the ring of a phone call. You had a troubled life, being given up and being adopted, having epilepsy, and the attendant psychological difficulties that came with them all. But today, let us not dwell on that. Let us keep the good parts in our heart and, though aware, release the sadness of our separation. --lorraine