In a Room Filled With Others

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Email this to a friend Saving Love: A Sisters Story By Courtney Frey
"Wait mom, you have a brother? That sounds silly!" Said my seven year old as we entered the second hour of doing homework that should have only taken 15 minutes. She gets extremely intuitive during any kind of self-discipline. She also thought it hilarious that her Uncle was only a year and a half old.

I wasn't sure how to explain the adoption of my littlest brother to my oldest daughter. I wasn't even sure how to explain it to myself. I watched the sun highlight her dark black hair through our kitchen window as she smiled behind her PowerPuff pencil. She caught me looking and with her tongue stuck to the tip of the lead said, "Kinda like my big brother huh mom?"

I was caught off guard. I shouldn't have been, for we talk of the son I relinquished nearly eleven years ago often. My daughter, in her accepting spirit and young wisdom has long been calling my son her Angel brother. She knows her mommy is a birth mother, and has never been ashamed to tell others about the son her mommy wasn't old enough to keep. I have never hidden the truth from her. I often ponder regretting that due to her extreme and uninhibited honesty to perfect strangers.

Yet in moments like that one I was grateful. "Yeah hon, kinda like your big brother."

She tilted her head, set her pencil gently onto the table, and searching my eyes said, "At least you get to see your Angel brother."

I held her in my arms. We were mother and daughter, but in that moment we were also two sisters struggling to understand our brothers, and how to love them. I could not hide the tears.

Neither could I make it to my little brothers finalization ceremony in May of 2001. I just couldn't go. The memory of a courtroom and I a birthmother within it, the remaining echoes of a judge's gavel, and the painful, immediate loss that filled me still lived on in my soul.

Several acquaintances of mine had asked me, "Doesn't it feel weird that you're twenty six and your dad's adopting a kid?"

I stopped myself from telling them that wasn't really the weird part. It's that I'm a birthmother and I wasn't sure how I'd deal with having an adopted brother.

A large emotional part of me resented the situation. As if I were looking over adoptive parent profiles and could see my own father in the pages, years later after I'd grown up and gone away. Big house with a swimming pool just off a beach in California, self-employed and living comfortably with a beautiful blond wife whose education and career spoke for itself. It was like my little brother got the parents I'd always wanted … as a kid. Growing up we barely made ends meet, yet my little brother had visited Disneyland before he was two years old. I realized … I was jealous.

I also felt like the fifteen year old who had relinquished her son. Was I good enough for my new little brother? Could I be the sister he'd need? Would he even love me? And if I did open my heart and give in to loving him … would I be betraying my own relinquished son? Would he ask me how I could have loved my adopted brother, but not him?

I feared that every time I looked at my little brother the only thoughts in my mind would be of his own birthmother, and my own son. I was scared to death.

Before I saw him for the first time, I talked myself into numbness. A big part of me also felt that I had to prove to my father that I too was as good a parent as he and my stepmother. My way of fighting the insecurity. I concentrated on dressing my own children in perfect outfits, keeping them happy, and hosting a very protective smile all the while.

He had huge black curly locks of hair, and the biggest brown eyes I'd ever seen when I first laid eyes on him. My throat swelled, reacting to instant adoration, but I choked it down. I would be strong, I told myself. And that is the last I remember of my first visit with my little brother.

I saw him twice more that year and remained at a distance. My resentment grew as I watched the precious bonding between my littlest brother and my other three siblings. I broke out in sweats each time my little brother called out the name of one of my siblings, reaching his sweet pudgy baby arms out for their loving embrace. He'd already given nicknames to each of the other siblings, yet I could not make an effort to earn one of my own. I wanted to hear him say my name … but was un-able to bond with him. He stole the spotlight, demanded constant attention, which was given freely and eagerly, while I ached and screamed inside against my own realities of loss and pain.

I convinced myself that my little brother knew I was a birth mother and therefore would never be able to love me. I would not be the brotherly mentor to him that my other brother would be, I would not be the funny, witty, high-spirited sister to him that my sisters were. I would not be my father's pride and joy, nor would I be the one he spoke of anymore around the dinner table. I felt I had nothing to offer, and resigned myself to accepting that.

Until, when everything changed. I was in California for business and after a long day of visiting with potential clients, my stepmother picked me up and took me to their home.

When we arrived, she left the room while my father and I hugged and caught up on things, and the next thing I know … everything changed.

From the top of the stairs came a loud little voice calling out, "Cou - tee!!" My heart stopped. My little brother had learned my name and was calling for me. Me. I simply stood, frozen in place with my mouth wide open and tears forming in my eyes.

Around the corner came a tiny, chubby, little boy with arms reaching out … running towards me calling again and again … my name.

Before I could re-act he jumped up into me, wrapped his arms around my neck and nestled his face close. Still saying, "Cou - tee … Cou - tee."

The warmth from his body filled me completely, the strength in his hold on me caused my knees to tremble.

"You … you … come on a plane?" He whispers close to my ear.

Choking back sobs I whisper, "Yeah … a very big plane."

He is taken back upstairs to bed, my stepmother realizing the vulnerability in me that my little brother has exposed. She smiles, knowingly. My father steps to me, "I'm proud of you Courtney," he says.

My little brother's unconditional love truly saved me from a world of fear and lifted me into a new world of acceptance. Not only did his love miraculously heal old wounds and painful fears, but in some strange way … his love gently reassured me that my own son could love me as well. I can't explain what my little brother did that day. I only know that it worked. I realized that more important than my own issues, fears, and insecurities was a little boy who needed a big sister … and a big sister who needed a little brother.

I often call my stepmother just to have her put my brother on the phone so that I can ask him … "Say my name?"

And every time he does, I find myself all over again.

"Mom?" My daughter asks with pencil to mouth over homework.
"Yes?"
"It's weird. I have one brother who has another family and an Uncle who's littler than me and who's adopted, and I have two dads." She's looking into the air with a thoughtful gaze. I smile, "What's so weird about that?"
She shrugs, "None of my friends have so much cool family. They think I'm lucky."
I nudge her with my shoulder, "You are sweetie … we all are. Now can we finish your homework?"

********

Courtney Frey is employed by Adoption.com, is the Founder of BreakThrough Inc, http://www.adoptionbreakthrough.org, and is the author of, "One Birthmother's Emotional Truth." To read more by Courtney visit, "http://www.adopting.org/Courtney and to read more about families in adoption visit http://www.adoptshop.com and check out the available books.

"BreakThrough Live!" San Diego, C.A November 1st – 3rd, 2002