New Year's Day: That time of year when we long to connect

Lorraine

It's New Year's Day and I am reading a terrific new book about horrific adoption practices called American Baby, subtitled the "Shadow History of Adoption," but as I read about how records came to be sealed, how babies were treated as goods to be sold/given to wealthy families, my mind keeps turning to the sadness that is dripping across my Facebook feed. Adoptees and birth mothers write about the despair of not connecting, decades after birth and separation. It's that time of the year when our social impulse urges us to connect.  

Mothers are distraught because their children, now grown and found, do not want to stay in touch after a brief reunion, or a non-reunion following connection via Facebook, email or telephone. Adult children are diffident about reunion, while mothers are breast-beating in sorrow, hoping, waiting for more. Adoptees are crushed that their found biological families--mothers especially--do not embrace them because of politics, strangeness, or just...because they can. My Facebook feed, which has eliminated nearly everything but adoption-related posts, is difficult to read now. I see less often the posts of friends from outside of adoption, even family members are less likely to come up. 

And while now and then a "good" reunion story comes through, the bulk of them are overbearingly sad. I try to write a few words of comfort, but I remember the days when my daughter did not speak to me, and how much it hurt. I remember my granddaughter once telling me that my daughter once said, "We are not going to see Lorraine" anymore now. That's when a letter to my granddaughter was returned with a bright red "Refused" written on it. My daughter's husband at the time was a postman. But that separation too came to an end. 

The beach near my home 

In time, Jane would call and begin the conversation with "How are you?" as if we had spoken only days earlier. I learned not to question her about the absence, the messages not returned.  What was the point? Did I ever get used to her comings and goings? Yes, somewhat. Eventually, I grew a protective shield. I cared less because how many times--after decades--was she going to stomp on my heart? Then things would be going great and I'd let down my guard and I'd do or say something that upset her, or her adoptive mother would say or do something that hurt Jane, and Jane's way of dealing with that was to shut me out. Again. 

Adoption hurts. Beginning there and moving forward with the knowledge that nothing will ever be as if the rift between mother and child did not happen may be the true beginning of healing for both sides. Honesty, without being cruel, can help. Adoptees can say, I just can't deal with this now, it's too much, give me some time. Knowing how much pain is involved for birth/first mothers who ache for reunion, I hope that that "time" does not extend into "forever." Mothers can admit the flow of painful emotions are overwhelming, but they should recognize that the child, if wanting reunion, needs them now as much as an infant does for sustenance. Now the need is for emotional sustenance. I cannot stress enough that the pain that rejecting mothers inflict by rejecting adoptees seeking reunion and recognition in the family is as great as an infant crying out for milk. 

For some, this horrid year of Covid and death will not have ended with the tolling of the bells at last night's midnight. Some reunions will never go the way we wish them to, and we simply must make do. The people who want to be in our lives will be; you don't have to go chasing after them. In the end, we all must accept that our lives can not be detached from our past. We can overcome a great many setbacks and difficulties, but they are still with us. It is what we do with them that determines our future and our peace of heart.--lorraine

PS: Soon I'll write more about that book American Baby, A Mother, A Child and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser.