Touched by Adoption
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Touched by Adoption 3
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Loving Her Through the EndBy Mary Gardner
Sacramento, California, U.S.A.
As I review the events of the past year, I am amazed at what has occurred.The changes in my life have been so significant that I hardly know myselfanymore. I am different. It has taken a decade to reach this point and on my40th birthday, I can say that I can face the rest of my life as a wholeperson.
I am an adoptee, and like so many others, I have been aware (or reminded) ofmy adopted status for as long as I can remember. The family I grew up in wasan assortment of adopted children, totaling four, brought together by acouple who could not have children of their own. Four children from fourdifferent localities, four different gene pools, four points of a compassheld together at the center by the bond of adoption. And, being the onlyperson I knew like me, I wondered at my beginnings.
I had been searching for many years with no luck but the urge hit its apexwhen my daughter was nine. She was asked to bring a family heirloom toclass and write a paper on her family. The only heirloom that I possess isa trunk full of photographs that date back to the 1800?s. There are pictures of a sheriff, a woman in a feathered hat, the funeral ofa general in the Canadian Army. A baby in a spindly-legged cradle, a housethat one relative or another had occupied in 1921, and the 7th Brigade.Auntie this, Uncle that, and the judge who presided over my adoption. Thephotograph of the judge is the only one that connects me to the family inthe trunk.This is when I began to search in earnest. I thought I could dig back intomy search on Monday and have all of my questions answered by Wednesday, justlike on Oprah or Maury. In reality, it would take another three years toreach my prize. The lesson I was being taught by this exercise was patience. Something within me was required to mature before I could receivemy gift.
Finally I linked up with a searcher over the Internet. With more patience,and little money, I finally got my hit. It took many weeks to draft theletter I would finally send on September 17, 1999. I still had to wait sixmonths for a response. I had been preparing for ten years for the day of ourreunion, I guess she could have six months.
She was 31 with two children from a previous marriage and worked two jobs.During the day, she worked at a chainsaw factory chrome plating saw blades.At night she worked at a nightclub, where she met my father. He worked aspart of a pit crew for a stock car driver and had an ex-wife and children inOklahoma. They fell in love and she got pregnant. Neither would be able tosupport another child. So, for them the best decision was to relinquish. Atthe clinic, a nurse put her in touch with a doctor, who knew a lawyer, whoknew a family in California who would take the baby if it was healthy.No one knew of her pregnancy except for her ex-husband, my birthfather, avery dear friend, and the doctor. She sent her children to live with theirfather and covered her pregnancy with the little dog she carried in hercoat.
On April 3, 1961, she went into labor and by 11:00 that night she had givenbirth to a healthy baby. Unnamed, it would be less real and it would beeasier to give away. She was told that she would forget and that life wouldgo one. She didn?t and it did. I would be a well-kept secret that wouldhaunt her for many years to come. She and my birth father married two months after my birth. My adoptivemother says that this was the complication in my adoption but will not sayanything more on the subject. The marriage lasted only a few years. Shehas since lost contact with him. After this divorce, she would never marryagain.
On January 29, 2000 around 9:00 p.m., the phone rang. My daughter told methat there was some lady on the phone and gave me her name. It was my birthmother. In a panic, I told everyone to leave the room. Hands trembling, I stared into the receiver. At that moment in time, I wasstanding in the middle of my life. I could live with everything that hadoccurred to this point, but could I live with what would happen next? Icould be welcomed or I could be told to go to hell. It was my great fortunethat my birthmother was one of the 95% of birthmothers that welcome contactby their relinquished child.
After five minutes of ?Ummms? and ?Oh my God?s?, she told me that she didn?tdo it for the money, she spent it only on the doctors. She said that afterthe birth, she never allowed herself to think of me and she told no one ofmy existence. She told me of my heritage and gave me her health information.She gave me everything she thought I needed to know in case we never spokeagain. She was protecting herself. She was afraid of me and that I wouldonly be coming after her now to tear her apart. But after speaking for overan hour, she gave me permission to call her again, which I did every nightfor the next two weeks just to make sure that it was still okay to call.The calls have slowed to one a week with as many cards and letters. It hasbecome a warm and comfortable relationship between two old friends who havefallen in love. Not a romantic love, but a deep familial love.
For her it was redemption. To know that I was alive and happy, that I carried no anger toward her, that I was not re-entering her life to causeher harm and that I loved her she was free. For me it was a release from the wonder, and the fear and pain of abandonment and rejection. I still carry these as issues, but she is nolonger the cause. They are only old habits I need to break. It was also the filling in of the gaping hole that had been in my heartsince birth. I know that I have always been loved, but to know that mybirthmother loves me validates me.
Her love has given my life wings, to try and complete new things. Thisyear?s adventures included meeting my birthmother face-to-face for the firsttime, kayaking an 84-mile stretch of river in Utah and hiking to the top ofHalf Dome in Yosemite National Park. None of these events would have takenplace without my new sense of empowerment, my gift from my mother.
But, as all good things must come to and end, so must this joyous time. InNovember of 2000, we were given the news that she may have six months to ayear to live. It is now almost six months since the news and things areokay, but I know where we are headed in the six months that follow today.
I must see this time as the gift it was meant to be and not the tragedy itwill become. After 39 years of separation, our two years together will bespent filling in the past, creating a history for me that is my own, ahistory that includes all of my ancestors.
And for her, she will have me to love her through the end.
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