Writing My Wrongs

It Reminds Me of Me

“As long as one keeps searching, the answers come” - Joan Baez

Ugh.

Do I really want to read this book?

You Remind Me of Me: A Novel (Paperback)
by Dan Chaon (Author)

"Three lives viewed through a kaleidoscope of memories and secret pain assume a kind of mythical dimension in Chaon's piercingly poignant tale of fate, chance and search for redemption. As he demonstrated in his short story collection Among the Missing, Chaon has a sensitive radar for the daily routines of people striving to escape the margins of poverty and establish meaningful lives. Here, a woman's unsuccessful effort to rise above the pain of giving away an illegitimate baby, and to fight against mental illness and offer love to a second child, blights all their lives... "

I am about 100 pages in and wow, its tough.  Seriously tough.  The maternity home references, the character reaction to the home, her feelings, etc. are quite powerful and yeah, equally triggering.

Books like this take me some time to get through. While normally I can devour a book in an evening, a weekend or a few days, books like this get opened, closed, picked up, put down, cried on, thrown across the room and even at times given away or discarded. (The Primal Wound has taken quite a beating in my house and as of today it is not even here. I lent it to a cutie boy aDad friend of mine to read to better understand his adopted daughters).

I muse over this books and wonder why I read such things.  Is this my way to continually punish myself? To continually walk into the emotional torture room and self-flagellate? Or do I get some sort of healing from it? Am I stronger upon reading or weaker or somewhere in between?

What am I hoping to find in all this adoption trauma reading I do?  The answer? Some explanation? Some golden key to understand how and why this was done to my child and me?  Some healing balm that suddenly makes it alright?  Some explanation for why and how social workers who KNEW that separating mother and child was damanging - yet they did it anyway? Some understanding as to how Seymour Kurtz and his ring of baby thieves can sleep at night knowing what they did to so many mothers, children and adoptive families all in the name of the almighty dollar?

What am I looking for?

A friend recently told me she thought that her search for her mother, and eventually finding of her, would fix her. She thought she would feel whole and better and normal.  She doesn't. While she is happy she found her mama, she still feels broken and twisted.

Normally, I would have hugged her, offered some inspirational words or resources or others to talk to.

I couldn't. 

Her statement made me realize how broken and twisted I am as well.

Honoring Pain of all Kinds

"When you welcome your emotions as teachers,
every emotion brings good news,
even the ones that are painful." - Gary Zukav

I despise comparing pain.

As I have written about many times, I don’t think we can ever truly know who hurts more or less.  I don’t care how much you hurt, what the quality of your pain is, the quantity or the frequency. I care that you hurt at all. I have no need to assign it a  qualifier of more than mine or less than mine.  I allow it to be.

I try my best to not compare my experience to BSE moms or open adoption moms or closed adoption moms. Losing your child is losing your child. Losing your mother is losing your mother. Does giving it a degree of pain make it less traumatic?  It is wrong and it shouldn’t have to be and it causes trauma. For me and me alone, it ends there. Loss is loss. Trauma is trauma.

Many don’t feel as I do. Many feel the need to gauge their pain and compare it to others or to mine. As noted, this always irks me. I have begun to believe that it is more than just the above. It isn’t just that I don’t find value in comparing pain levels rather it is that I find someone saying that theirs is greater means that mine is lesser and therefore, not as important and ultimately dismissed.

More importantly, I have personally begun to realize, for like the first time ever, that my pain is two fold.

My pain is rooted in both the loss of my daughter to adoption and the experience of being sent away to a “home”.

Historically, and I believe rightly so, I have placed more focus on the loss of my child.  Yes, it was awful to be locked away in a maternity home but it was much more painful to lose my child. Recently, due to my reading of the Lucifer Effect and specifically, the story of The Stanford Prison Experiment, my experience as an inmate in the home has taken on an entirely new meaning.

I have always known it bothered me. I did not realize until recently just how much.  My therapist will occasionally say something like “it must have been terribly difficult to be sent away”. The mere utterance of those words from his lips will send me into a puddle of tears. No one has ever validated the horror of that experience for me. Not my parents, not my siblings and certainly not me.  Even other moms that lived with me, find it odd that the experience bothered me. One of my friends says she loved it there and she felt safer and happier than if she had been at home. It was like a ‘big old girls dorm party” I was once told.

Say what? Were we living in the same place?

Not me.  Oh, I pretended I was okay. I went along. I was a good little locked away birth mother. In fact, I was very good. I did my chores. I signed in and out. I respected the house mothers. I rarely used the pay phone. I kept my feelings and my thoughts to myself. I did not stir up trouble with other girls that I disliked. I did not tell on anyone who may have violated the house rules. I was a good girl (ha!). I even adopted the herd mentality.

Yes, that’s right the mentality. I realize now that we, as a collective, even contributed to each other losing our children.  We fed off each other. “Your doing this, right? “You are going to give up your baby right? “.

Much like prisoners do in a riot, we followed along with our neighbors. For to buck the system, to  challenge the system, could set the entire home off balance. We did not receive parenting classes, there was no discussion of keeping your child. If you were there, you were there because you were giving away your baby.

To not give up my child would have been to disappoint my parents, my church, my agency, my caseworker, those poor infertile prospective adopters AND the only friends I had – other expectant moms like me.

My friend T was interned at the home at the same time I was. She was even put there by the same agency. But T had a boyfriend.  She was paroled early for good behavior. That is, T got married.  I so clearly remember talking to another mom about how happy we were for her but we were also rather upset. She violated the rules.  How dare she keep her baby!

If you were in that place, you were supposed to give away your child. How dare she go off, get married and keep her child? Didn’t she know the rules? Hadn’t she read the fine print?

T getting married and keeping her child reminded the rest of us what we did not have. So, instead being happy for her, some of us ostracized her (if even behind fake smiles). She had not ingested enough  kool-aid. Bad T.

Hello, but can I say, WTF? 

This was the herd mentality. It’s amazing to me to think that not only did my caseworker and the house mothers and my parents and the church contribute to the loss of my child, but my friends did in some odd way too.  (And I, of course, contributed to theirs).

It makes me feel ill.

I pretended it was okay to be in that place and that it paled in comparison to losing my daughter. That may be true, it may be a lesser pain and trauma but it is still pain and trauma and I must honor it and give it space.

And all the other moms to whom I contributed to the loss of their child, I am sorry. I should have told you, as well as myself, to run as fast as you could away from that place.

Had we done so we might have shared feeding tips, and exchanged baby food recipes and clothing, instead of sharing trauma.

My Friend C

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

Her skin.

It reminds me of caramel. Light caramel. It is clear and has the slightest hint of brown.   

Upon looking at her for the first time you may think she is Caucasian. But then you look closer and you see the kink to her hair, or the extensions she is wearing and you realize that she is black. But you question yourself.

Perhaps she is Dominican? Puerto Rican?  What is she?

I can tell you.

She is one of my oldest friends.  We met in the maternity home in 1986 and we have stayed friends since then.  Months, even years, can go by before we see each other but when we do it is like we were never apart. Conversation comes easily and hugs are openly and easily exchanged. 

We laugh like teenage girls. We rehash stories of our times at the home in Chicago. She tells the story of my silver shoes, my flowered pants, my chronic hair coloring and beer cans lining doorways.  She will remind everyone in the room of the time when I told a mutual friend (that had overstayed her welcome at our apartment) that it was time for her to leave.

My friend C. 

She is coming to visit me this weekend. I am hosting a Lia Sophia jewelry party and she is driving over three hours to see me.

I don’t have the words to express how happy this makes me. The smile on my face shows it all. Perhaps words are not needed.

I know, without question, that one of the deep bonds of our friendship is rooted in the fact that we shared the same trauma at nearly the same time in the same location. Her son was born and lost to adoption one month after my daughter was.  We later became roommates and struggled through paying the rent, finding jobs, and finding food. We went through boyfriends, Clubland, Romas, Leonas and navigated the Chicago El together. We dined at my favorite Mexican place in Lincoln Park. We had our hair cut by Joseph, the cute gay guy, in a salon in Boystown. We joked about our gay neighbors making out on the elevator as we carried our groceries to our apartment. We smashed cockroaches together. We made mac and cheese with jalapeno pepper cheese. We bought furniture from Clyde, the drug dealer on Sheridan Road.

Amazing how deeply connected you can become to a person who shares the same soul wounds. 

My dear friend C.

She just knows.

She has seen me at my worst and seen me climb out from under it. She has been my friend through it all and I know, without question, she would do anything for me, as I would for her.

Don’t we all need friends like that?

Did I mention she is not only a first mom but an adoptee? Yup. Presumably given up due to being a biracial child born in the early 60s.  She hasn’t found her roots yet. She is thinking about it again. She has a name but she is a bit anxious to do much with it. What if mom is deceased? What if the biracial status is indeed the reason for her adoption? How will she, as a “halvsie”, be received by a possible white mother? Does she dare open that pandoras box?

She is also contemplating finding her son. I am sure we will discuss both searches this weekend. Of course I will help her.

She is amazing. Her mother and her son deserve to know what a big heart she has. 

I know. I have held it in my heart for over 20 years and I will hug it extra hard this weekend. I will hug her for me, for the son she is missing and for the mother she lost.

My friend C.

A Freewrite Based on Experience

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away." Elvis Presley

And then it all came rushing back. The smells, the sounds, and the temperature of the maternity home.

I stood across the street from the grey stone building and was transfixed. I felt as though I had been thrown back in time.

As the door opened on the building that was now the Depaul University Theatre Annex, several students exited.  I stood and watched them. Instead of seeing young, vibrant college students, I saw the ghostly apparitions of the unwed teenage mothers that had once called the building "home".

Molly, from Michigan, was returning home from the hospital. Clad in dark leggings and a dark black oversized shirt, she was helped from the car by her social worker. Her dark eyeglasses and the cane she carried gave her the appearance of a blind person. She wasn’t blind of course. She was three days post partum.  Three days had passed since her hip had been dislocated during the birth of her son. She looked terribly sad. She could barely walk and if you looked closely you could see the tears that fell from her puffy blue eyes. The eyes, now flecked with red from the strain of crying, were a stark contrast against the glasses and long mane of blonde hair.

A jovial, Lorna Jean, 8 months pregnant, rushed by Molly. Lorna had to work at the consignment shop to pay for her stay at the home.  She was often late and this frustrated the other shop workers. She had no time to stop and talk to Molly about the birth of her son. She yelled a quick “hello’ followed by a wave and waddled down the street towards the shop.

Patsy, the house mother, appeared on the scene and was startled to see Molly. As Molly struggled with the door and her social worker struggled with her bags, Patsy attempted to make small talk.   Would that make things better? Would that make Molly forget the fact that she had just given birth and had surrendered her son? Would that silly chit chat from the mouth of Patsy help Molly’s broken hip (and heart) heal faster? Would it make her forget what had been done to her and son?

More images flashed before me.

One student left the door open and I could see inside. The plush dark blue carpeting suddenly morphed into the old grey and blue vinyl tile of twenty years ago. I could hear the clack of my wood soled silver loafers I wore during my pregnancy. I shuddered at the sound of Sheree’s shuffling her feet on the stairs above.

Peering in and down the stairs I recall the dining room and the box of fuzzy oranges.  Food was regularly delivered to the pantry and overflow was left in the dining room. It was always cold in there. It was Chicago in the winter and it was a basement. You could leave food out for days and it would be chilled.

A box of oranges was left there. Abandoned, like a mutant fruit bowl on the floor, for the expectant mothers to take from. Only no one saw the mutant box of fruit and within a few days the oranges turned fuzzy with brown mold.

I can smell them now.

The A-Files

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are." - David McCullough

The "home" for unwed mothers I was interred in is no longer in existence. It was run by St. Joseph Hospital and located near DePaul University in Chicago. I am still amused by the fact that it was also once a convent. Convent, turned home for "bad" girls, turned Theatre Annex for Depaul. Jesus, Pregnancy and Acting.  Hmmm, interesting.

I had to be interviewed and accepted to the "home". Never knew what it was what they were checking for. Was I desperate enough? Alone enough? Abandoned enough? Perhaps pregnant enough? Was I feeling bad enough for my "sins"? Did I look like I might produce an attractive healthy child that would fetch a good price on the adoption market?

I wonder what the file they kept on me said. Did I classify as a pathetic slut who deserved to have her child taken from her? Was I one of the ones who had "potential" that would be better off without my child?

What exactly DID the director write in my files? What did she say about me? Is there a document somewhere in some ones archives or basement that talks about the 17 year old girl that came from 900 miles away, alone, wearing black stretch pants and a black and red checked over sized shirt? Did they notice my clothing? My eyes?

Did they notice ME at all? Or was all attention on my bulging stomach? Did I even exist? Did they look right through me?

I know now that every one around me in the home (except me) knew there was something "wrong" about the "agency" I was working with.  Of course they did not tell me but did they write in my file?  Did they make a notation, perhaps in number 2 pencil, that said "another baby to be sold by Kurtz? Another clueless mom?"

What did they know? What did they write about me?

A friend of mine, who also lost her child to Kurtz in the same year, stayed in a Crittendon "home" in southern IL.  She recently got copies of her twenty year old file. Complete with assessments, intake forms, letters and notes.

I cannot imagine how triggering that must have been for my friend. Yet at the same time, I suspect it would also be healing. To know, finally, what had happened to you when everything was being kept from you. When mail was being withheld or opened by "house" mothers, when calls were screened, when your whereabouts tracked.  To finally be able to read, see, find out the truth of what others were doing to you when you were completely unaware and totally vulnerable.

I think I want to know. I want to see my own file.

I wonder where it is?