After reading parts of my blog, those posts pertaining to my adoption, I realized that there are large volumes of information left out. While it has been fairly easy to document my feelings on the matter, I realized I have failed at presenting the facts. So, in light of that, I will describe how it came about that I found out who my birth mother is. This is a story that is quite incredible.
Let's go back to the night when I was at mom's house sitting down at her dining room table with a notepad and a pencil frantically taking down the words that rolled off of Debi's tongue.
Debi is the wonderful angel who took her time to find out who my birth mother is. She is the one who stayed up until 5am when she had to be at work at 8am on many occasions mind you. Risking losing her job, she allowed me to call her at work during our narrowing down sessions. Was it this school? Was it that school? What we didn't know in the beginning, until I found out an exact year anyway, was that the key for us finding out a name would be in the birth mother's fifth grade report card.
What a lot of people don't understand about closed adoption is the power of anonymity. When they say the records are sealed, they mean it. The amount of people that actually have names to go by is even smaller than the chances of having a story that ends happily ever after.
As Debi told me that I needed to sit down because she had a name, I was in shock and amazement as I recall. But once I had her name, I don't remember what I felt. Was it numbness? I don't know. But whatever it was, it wasn't what I had imagined. I didn't feel like a huge weight was lifted off. In fact, I felt more unsure- until I spoke to Barbara.
Barbara is the birth mother's best friend with whom she grew up. They lived in the same neighborhood, and pushed their baby dolls in their little baby doll strollers down the lane together when they were toddlers. They grew up to become women together, and knew each other probably like you know your best friend- complete with her idiosyncrasies, and occasional irritating behaviors, both of which you patiently tolerate because in truth, you love your best friend. But as is with most best friends, there comes a time when you grow apart. There comes a time when you change and the other does not, when you move on, and the other stays. I have just recently come to a cold and stark realization that friendships do not last forever like some might say. In fact, they last for seasons, and with good right. No one stays the same, and if you do for a long amount of time, you're probably complacent, stagnant. Someone said once, the only permanent thing is life is change. I concur.
They grew apart, Barb and Colette. One went to college at one school, the other, elsewhere. As many friends who live in different cities do, they slowly stopped talking on a regular basis. They didn't know what was going on in each others lives. They didn't tell each other about the latest news around the dorm. What difference did that make now? By now, they were living in different dorms since the last time they spoke of it. Who was dating who was not a daily conversation, nor who in the family had done what to the other family member- both pretty common daily conversations, but those weren't taking place anymore. They were living their lives now- separate, like many of us do these days. The grew up. They got married. They had kids. They got divorced, and moved on again.
So, what was so amazing to me besides the fact that Debi got lucky and just so happened to call Colette's best friend and point blank asked if she knew a girl who was 5'7, weighed 120, had thick dark brown hair, green eyes, had a sister who was a physical therapist, and a brother who was newly married (in 1976), and on and on, what amazed me even further, was that she knew about the pregnancy.
After all, they had gone their separate ways. Why would she know about it? How could she know? She wasn't a staple in her life anymore. She didn't have Saturday morning bike rides with Colette anymore, or bump into her at the gas station.
Colette told her a few years later, as I recall her telling me, while they were on a beach trip. The wine got to flowing and so did the lips. I'm sure Colette felt the need to tell someone. It was a secret from most everyone, even her own brother from what I was told.
How could one keep a baby a secret? To me, that's like having a baby and throwing it in the trashcan. It's similar to having an abortion- no one knows except the ladies you share the waiting room with, and then you're done. It's like nothing ever happened. What baby? Huh? I'm not pregnant.
When Debi asked her the questions, she immediately said, "I know her. I know exactly who you're talking about."
Debi had a picture of me that she had copied from my FB page, and emailed it to Barb while she was still on the phone with her. Her jaw dropped and she said, "Oh my God, that is Colette, revamped. If I didn't know it, I would have thought that was her."
Can you imagine what this felt like to me? Just hearing someone say that someone else looked like me, was amazing. My daughter, I'm told by many people doesn't look like me. Occasionally, I'll meet some saint who tells me that we look just alike, and I hug that person, and they probably think I'm weird. So to hear someone say that I look exactly like someone else made me ecstatic. It brought tears to my eyes, and I lost my breathe again. I had to look around the room for some kind of sign that maybe God was at work in my life in that moment. Maybe, just maybe, that feeling that I had, was His sign. This is such a small part of the grand story, but had such profound impact on me, that I had to tell you.
Barb agreed to speak with me on the phone. I called her, and what did I say you're thinking. I told her, "thank you so much for letting me call you." Then the probing began. What is she like? What does she look like? Do you have a picture of her that you could send to me? She did, but it was too fuzzy, and I couldn't see it. And the other one she sent was one of them as little girls with their strollers. We could have been twins.
I immediately felt like I knew Barb. She was very easy to talk to, but I think she was extremely unsure if what she was doing was right or justified. She told me that Colette was, "easy to know, fun, but serious when the time came to be serious, professional at work, laid-back, etc" And she said some thing that Colette had remarked on that sounded eerily like something I would have blurted out a time or two, that she was "living in sin." She was referring to her live-in boyfriend. Before the Lord, I think I have said that about myself before, when I was living with Justin, and clearly, we were and still are, both single, and at the time marriage didn't play a role in the consideration of living together for either one of us. My views have since changed. I know how hard relationships are, and I'm not willing to live with someone and go through that hard work until I meet that man who wants to cram a ring on my fat little Vienna sausage finger because it's not until then that I will know that he is serious about making it work, and I'm not settling for less.
Since our conversation that night, we have had a few more on the phone, and a few via Facebook. She even sent me some handmade, by her, Swarovsky crystal earrings for Christmas that are quite stunning. I was happy to receive them. I tried to ask for her address to send a thank you card, but she hasn't responded to my texts or Facebook messages until yesterday. And it was not a good response.
I had just asked her what was going on. She had told me that her and her husband had some issues, well mostly her husband did, and she put up with abusive behavior. Frankly, I was worried that he had hurt her physically. When she responded she said, she didn't know anything, that it was out of her hands, and that it was up to me, and that a lot was going on with her life. The way she said it was very frazzled and upset. I hope she is OK. I reminded her that Jesus wants to help us all, even when we feel like he doesn't or when we feel like we aren't worthy. I'm sure that hearing some 35 year old's advice on dealing with problems is the last thing she wanted to hear. But it was probably the best thing she needed to hear, so I don't mind offending her on God's behalf, as if He needs me to root for Him. Nevertheless, I wanted to let her know that there is something much bigger than her current problem. I need to remind myself that in a lot of instances, practically everyday. And it is practical for everyday thinking and living.
That's the beauty of being a Christian for me. I can't do anything to make God love me any more than he already does. It's by His grace that we all are saved, not by anything that we did to earn it. It's not an easy concept to grasp and believe for many people because we live in such a merit based society. I partially blame our excessive need for control and understanding, for if you don't understand, you can not have control. Faith comes into play heavily here. If you do not have it, you will never reach the kingdom of heaven.
I think she is not telling me the whole truth. I guess she probably got an earful from Colette, when she told her that she had spoken to me, when they met at that funeral last month. We all know how funerals run a gamut of out of the ordinary conversation, mostly stemming from the obvious life shattering events that brought people together in the first place. I don't know it all, but we'll see. More to come.
Let's go back to the night when I was at mom's house sitting down at her dining room table with a notepad and a pencil frantically taking down the words that rolled off of Debi's tongue.
Debi is the wonderful angel who took her time to find out who my birth mother is. She is the one who stayed up until 5am when she had to be at work at 8am on many occasions mind you. Risking losing her job, she allowed me to call her at work during our narrowing down sessions. Was it this school? Was it that school? What we didn't know in the beginning, until I found out an exact year anyway, was that the key for us finding out a name would be in the birth mother's fifth grade report card.
What a lot of people don't understand about closed adoption is the power of anonymity. When they say the records are sealed, they mean it. The amount of people that actually have names to go by is even smaller than the chances of having a story that ends happily ever after.
As Debi told me that I needed to sit down because she had a name, I was in shock and amazement as I recall. But once I had her name, I don't remember what I felt. Was it numbness? I don't know. But whatever it was, it wasn't what I had imagined. I didn't feel like a huge weight was lifted off. In fact, I felt more unsure- until I spoke to Barbara.
Barbara is the birth mother's best friend with whom she grew up. They lived in the same neighborhood, and pushed their baby dolls in their little baby doll strollers down the lane together when they were toddlers. They grew up to become women together, and knew each other probably like you know your best friend- complete with her idiosyncrasies, and occasional irritating behaviors, both of which you patiently tolerate because in truth, you love your best friend. But as is with most best friends, there comes a time when you grow apart. There comes a time when you change and the other does not, when you move on, and the other stays. I have just recently come to a cold and stark realization that friendships do not last forever like some might say. In fact, they last for seasons, and with good right. No one stays the same, and if you do for a long amount of time, you're probably complacent, stagnant. Someone said once, the only permanent thing is life is change. I concur.
They grew apart, Barb and Colette. One went to college at one school, the other, elsewhere. As many friends who live in different cities do, they slowly stopped talking on a regular basis. They didn't know what was going on in each others lives. They didn't tell each other about the latest news around the dorm. What difference did that make now? By now, they were living in different dorms since the last time they spoke of it. Who was dating who was not a daily conversation, nor who in the family had done what to the other family member- both pretty common daily conversations, but those weren't taking place anymore. They were living their lives now- separate, like many of us do these days. The grew up. They got married. They had kids. They got divorced, and moved on again.
So, what was so amazing to me besides the fact that Debi got lucky and just so happened to call Colette's best friend and point blank asked if she knew a girl who was 5'7, weighed 120, had thick dark brown hair, green eyes, had a sister who was a physical therapist, and a brother who was newly married (in 1976), and on and on, what amazed me even further, was that she knew about the pregnancy.
After all, they had gone their separate ways. Why would she know about it? How could she know? She wasn't a staple in her life anymore. She didn't have Saturday morning bike rides with Colette anymore, or bump into her at the gas station.
Colette told her a few years later, as I recall her telling me, while they were on a beach trip. The wine got to flowing and so did the lips. I'm sure Colette felt the need to tell someone. It was a secret from most everyone, even her own brother from what I was told.
How could one keep a baby a secret? To me, that's like having a baby and throwing it in the trashcan. It's similar to having an abortion- no one knows except the ladies you share the waiting room with, and then you're done. It's like nothing ever happened. What baby? Huh? I'm not pregnant.
When Debi asked her the questions, she immediately said, "I know her. I know exactly who you're talking about."
Debi had a picture of me that she had copied from my FB page, and emailed it to Barb while she was still on the phone with her. Her jaw dropped and she said, "Oh my God, that is Colette, revamped. If I didn't know it, I would have thought that was her."
Can you imagine what this felt like to me? Just hearing someone say that someone else looked like me, was amazing. My daughter, I'm told by many people doesn't look like me. Occasionally, I'll meet some saint who tells me that we look just alike, and I hug that person, and they probably think I'm weird. So to hear someone say that I look exactly like someone else made me ecstatic. It brought tears to my eyes, and I lost my breathe again. I had to look around the room for some kind of sign that maybe God was at work in my life in that moment. Maybe, just maybe, that feeling that I had, was His sign. This is such a small part of the grand story, but had such profound impact on me, that I had to tell you.
Barb agreed to speak with me on the phone. I called her, and what did I say you're thinking. I told her, "thank you so much for letting me call you." Then the probing began. What is she like? What does she look like? Do you have a picture of her that you could send to me? She did, but it was too fuzzy, and I couldn't see it. And the other one she sent was one of them as little girls with their strollers. We could have been twins.
I immediately felt like I knew Barb. She was very easy to talk to, but I think she was extremely unsure if what she was doing was right or justified. She told me that Colette was, "easy to know, fun, but serious when the time came to be serious, professional at work, laid-back, etc" And she said some thing that Colette had remarked on that sounded eerily like something I would have blurted out a time or two, that she was "living in sin." She was referring to her live-in boyfriend. Before the Lord, I think I have said that about myself before, when I was living with Justin, and clearly, we were and still are, both single, and at the time marriage didn't play a role in the consideration of living together for either one of us. My views have since changed. I know how hard relationships are, and I'm not willing to live with someone and go through that hard work until I meet that man who wants to cram a ring on my fat little Vienna sausage finger because it's not until then that I will know that he is serious about making it work, and I'm not settling for less.
Since our conversation that night, we have had a few more on the phone, and a few via Facebook. She even sent me some handmade, by her, Swarovsky crystal earrings for Christmas that are quite stunning. I was happy to receive them. I tried to ask for her address to send a thank you card, but she hasn't responded to my texts or Facebook messages until yesterday. And it was not a good response.
I had just asked her what was going on. She had told me that her and her husband had some issues, well mostly her husband did, and she put up with abusive behavior. Frankly, I was worried that he had hurt her physically. When she responded she said, she didn't know anything, that it was out of her hands, and that it was up to me, and that a lot was going on with her life. The way she said it was very frazzled and upset. I hope she is OK. I reminded her that Jesus wants to help us all, even when we feel like he doesn't or when we feel like we aren't worthy. I'm sure that hearing some 35 year old's advice on dealing with problems is the last thing she wanted to hear. But it was probably the best thing she needed to hear, so I don't mind offending her on God's behalf, as if He needs me to root for Him. Nevertheless, I wanted to let her know that there is something much bigger than her current problem. I need to remind myself that in a lot of instances, practically everyday. And it is practical for everyday thinking and living.
That's the beauty of being a Christian for me. I can't do anything to make God love me any more than he already does. It's by His grace that we all are saved, not by anything that we did to earn it. It's not an easy concept to grasp and believe for many people because we live in such a merit based society. I partially blame our excessive need for control and understanding, for if you don't understand, you can not have control. Faith comes into play heavily here. If you do not have it, you will never reach the kingdom of heaven.
I think she is not telling me the whole truth. I guess she probably got an earful from Colette, when she told her that she had spoken to me, when they met at that funeral last month. We all know how funerals run a gamut of out of the ordinary conversation, mostly stemming from the obvious life shattering events that brought people together in the first place. I don't know it all, but we'll see. More to come.
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