Writing My Wrongs

Obligated

“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.” - Richard Bach

Obligated.

The word has stayed with me for days. I have heard it over and over in my mind. I even looked up the meaning in wiktionary (even though I knew what it meant). I could even hear JM's voice saying it.

Obligated.

In a recent comment thread, my dear friend JM (an adoptee AND a firstmom), indicated she did not want to search for her first family as she did not want to find more people she was obligated to love.

The word "obligated" hit me between the eyes and caused a big owie in my heart. It is a rather telling statement when an adoptee says she does not want to search and find more people she is obligated to love.

I don't want to speak for JM (although I don't think she would mind THAT much since we were both incarcerated in the same maternity home in 1986 and have remained friends ever since) nor do I mean to suggest that all adoptees feel this way.

However, the fact that ONE adoptee does, and that one adoptee is a dear friend of mine makes me sad.

Obligated.

The word obligated is an adjective used to imply commitment, having an obligation or being obliged. It is the simple past tense and past participle of the world obligate. Obligate means:

1. To bind, compel, or constrain by a social, legal, or moral tie.
2. To cause to be grateful or indebted; to oblige. (transitive)
3. To commit (money, for example) in order to fulfill an obligation.

A synonym of obligate is the word force.

Does anyone but me feel that it is terribly sad that our children would not find us because they feel "obligated" to love us? That they feel they have to force love to their adoptive parents and/or their first family? What have we done to our children if this is how they view love?

Furthermore, where would that assumption come from? Perhaps the fact that they felt (or were made to feel) obligated to love the strangers that adopted them? Indebted? Grateful that they were adopted and saved from a fate worse than death (growing up with their first family)?

On a more personal level, this word hit me because I sense, from words my daughter and I have exchanged, that she may feel the same. I wonder if she, like other adoptees, might be so exhausted from fulfilling her obligation to those that adopted her that she is lacking the ability to love anyone beyond that? Or said differently, and perhaps more impactful, isn't it sad that our children would find reunion as taking something from them versus giving something? Isn't it a sad statement when instead of viewing reunion as more people to love them they view it as more people to demand something of them?

Certainly Possible

"I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have." - Unknown

Mary, an adoptive mom reader, made a very valid point. I will paraphrase a bit. I hope she doesn't mind.

Essentially what I got from her comment was the suggestion that perhaps the reason my daughter has so little interest in me, her brothers, her first family, her medical history is because her adoption "worked". It did what the social workers say it is supposed to. Maybe she is one of those adoptees that feel no connection. Maybe her life was so perfect and wonderful that she has no need or curiosity to know where she came from, her first mother and father, brothers and sisters. Maybe, like many adoptive parents and adoptees report, to her, "genetics is nothing". Maybe she is whole and complete and wonderful and fabulous and all the other stuff the agency told me she would be by being raised with strangers. Maybe she has no such thing as primal wound. Maybe she was that blank slate that could be easily assimilated into another clan. Peruse nearly any adoption forum and you will likely come across an adoptee or two that insists, emphatically, they are fine with being adopted.

It really is quite possible, right? (If we want others to accept our reality, we must surely accept theirs, no?)

It is something we mothers have to think about. That is what we were supposedly doing, right? Giving our children a better life and letting them go? Now, even though the agencies and society lied to us in their suggestion that mothers could get over it and would go on and never feel a thing for our children again, we should not necessarily assume that our children are like us. Just because we never got over losing our child doesn't mean they could not get over losing us. We can cite experts and theory and imprinting (children KNOW they lost their mothers and it is forever a part of their chemical makeup) but what if those experts are wrong? What if some children can and do get on "just fine". They never knew any differently. The one mommy who raised them is their one mommy. Even if they came from somewhere else, they may be so whole and complete that the fact that they have another mother or family does not matter to them. Maybe mommies and daddies CAN be replaced. Maybe Verrier and Lifton and others have it all terribly wrong.

When I think about my daughter, my friend K's daughter, my friend D's daughter, I have to disagree with the suggestion that they are fine with being adopted. Perhaps my thinking is flawed or incredibly biased, but I disagree based on the following.

Wouldn't a whole, complete, not bothered adoptee at least treat their mothers or first families like they would a stranger? Wouldn't they be polite and talkative and not feel threatened or uncomfortable?

My belief (again, I am willing to admit it may be erroneous) is that the adoptees who struggle with reunion, who are ambivalent, hostile, are not adoptees for whom adoption "worked". They are adoptees that are struggling and conflicted with the fact that they are adopted. Maybe they are like my friend J who was told by her adoptive parents that they would withhold her college funds if she was in contact with "that woman". Maybe they are like my friend T who was literally disowned and thrown out of the family home by her adoptive parents when she started asking questions about her first mother. Maybe they are like my friend Z whose adoptive mother told her if she found her first family adoptive mother would commit suicide. Maybe those ambivalent adoptees are plain old scared and have had no support in addressing their adoption trauma.

I don't know.

I cannot know and we cannot know unless an adoptee tells us themselves. And even when they do tell us, I am sometimes apt to question. When adoptees demand over and over, often in harsh angry tones, they are FINE with being adopted, I wonder who they are trying to convince? When adoptees are angry and rude to people they don't even know and claim they don't want to know, I wonder what is behind that behavior. It is said anger is often a fear based emotion. What are they afraid of? (I might add the same is true with mothers who tell you over and over again they are superdeeduper thrilled they gave away their baby.)

I do know that when someone doesn't matter to me, I am at least polite to them. I am not passive aggressive, harsh, rude, angry. I am civil. I am friendly. Anything more or less than that implies to me, that there is some emotion there. To me, in my life, when I am emotional with someone to any degree, it is because they mean something to me. Because I have some emotional attachment to them.

In short, I agree with Mary that is theoretically possible my daughter is one of those very well adjusted happy adoptees that has no desire to know where she came from, how or why. I hope that is not the case but I do realize the possibility exists.

Should that turn out to be the case, in the long term, I will do what I have always done.

I will survive and I will continue to love my child regardless.

A's Comment

“Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong- sometimes it's letting go.” - Unknown

I am not quite sure what exactly A was getting at in his or her comment. It seemed like he or she had not read my post or how I said I welcome my daughters dialog and feelings. I WANT to know them - even if they differ from mine. But of course, A wouldn't know this because I don't post what I write my daughter here nor do I post what she writes me.

I also am quite confident that as today, she and I have opposing views on adoption. I don't get the sense that she is the uber happy adoptee but I do believe she struggles with my position. I believe, perhaps erroneously, that she struggles with it because to truly acknowledge me, she must acknowledge herself, her adoptive parents and the hows and whys and who's of her birth, surrender, sale and adoption. It is not a pretty story. I don't begrudge her one bit wanting to avoid it. It is quite painful.

I expect her to have a differing view. We are two different people with two different experiences. She is the child that was surrendered and sold by a broker and I am the mother that allowed that to happen. Regardless of who did what and who was the victim or who hurts more, the entire situation is awful for all concerned. She has to reconcile hers as much as I have to reconcile mine.

Does she have to convert to my way of thinking and fight the beast with me? Of course not. As stated, our reunion and my advocacy work is entwined but they are absolutely separate as well. I have asked no one close to me to pick up my flag and fight to free the mothers and children. I have not made believing like me a condition of my friendship. I have not discarded those with opposing view and GASP! I even have adoptive parent friends. I even dated an adoptive father (and I did not melt or get burned or other).

I don't want my daughter to believe what I believe or fight what I fight. I want her to respect who I am as much she wants me to respect who she is. If I were a Republican and she a Democrat I would want her to accept that as a difference in us - not a barrier to a relationship. If she was religious and I was not, same rule applies. I don't want her to be like me.

If we all thought the same, how boring would the world be?

However, I do think A was trying to make a point that I do agree with.

I am a strong personality with strong views and the ability to debate them and stand up for them (at least NOW I am. I cannot say the same for the 18 yo maternity home resident I once was).

I don't doubt that might be difficult for my daughter. However, I am also confident she is quite the same. If you could see her writing to me, you would agree. She is not a shrinking violet by any means. She is gifted with words, intuitive and incredibly direct - to the point of being hurtful. My own family has said the same about me. (Perhaps my sister will pipe up here and confirm). As much as her view may be difficult to handle at times, it also makes me smile. It is mirroring. Each time I cringe at her forthright nature, I smile. I am reminded of my own mother and the challenges she had (and still has) with me and I smile. She is, no doubt, my daughter.

And that makes me feel great.

Condundrums

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung

I wonder what specific things my daughter dislikes about me.

In discussing my post of yesterday with a few friends I was reminded of many adoptees I have helped reunite. Nearly all of them are in their early twenties. Nearly all of them have given their mother in reunion very specific direction, judgements, corrections on her behavior or life. I find this a bit unsettling for all concerned but more personally wonder when, what, if my daughter will do the same to me.

Consider my friend H.

H found her mother a few years ago. Upon finding her she proceeded to tell her mother that she was too fat, needed to lose weight, must stop smoking, must stop dating the guy she was dating and must get a new job (because it was a lowly job and reuinted daughter was embarassed to tell her adoptive parents what her mother did for a living).

If mother did not do these things, H indicated she would have a hard time developing a relationsihp with her and might decide not to see her. The weight, smoking and boyfriend were a big issue for H. In my opinion, she was essentially threatening her mother. Do what I say and be the mom I want or you will not be allowed to see me at all.

H told me all of this and I often found myself startled at her boldness. Because of the nature of our friendship, I could (and did) gently probe her on the demands she was making of her mother. Were they appropriate? What were they rooted in? Was she attempting to make her mother into the mother of her fantasy versus accepting who her mother really was? Did she also demand such things from adoptive mother? Over time, H seemed to soften and told me she appreciated me poking a bit at her as she realized how difficult she was being.

But H is not alone.

Several of my other friends, also the same age range, have done similar things in their reunions with their mothers.

• Don't smoke or I won't talk to you anymore.
• Stop drinking or I won't see you.
• Don't dress like that or I won't be seen with you.
• Brush your hair differently or I won't allow you to come to my home.
• Don't date that guy or I won't call you anymore.
• Don't have a myspace page. That is for young kids. Act your age.

Where does this come from?

Do all adoptees, at least all female ones, accept their mothers in reunion only with conditions? Is this an age or maturity thing? (Recall that nearly all my adoptee friends are of the same age). Does a 40 yo adoptee entering reunion make such demands on her mother or is that something that is limited to twenty something adoptees? Since many adoptees were given conditional love by their adoptive parents are they simply mirroring what they learned? Since they grew up being told to be a certain way, act a certain way, pretend to belong, do they feel it is okay to say the same to their mothers in reunion? Are they even aware they do this?

When our children do or say such things to us, do they have any idea how triggering that is to days gone by?

If my daughter gave me a "don't", I am quite confident I would hear my father saying "Don't put those pictures out. That did not happen and we will never discuss that." ("That" being my daughter). It would be very hard for me to separate out my daughters DONT from my fathers DONT. Once again, I would be feeling not good enough, not right enough, not welcome and not accepted only this time by my own child.

I couldnt sleep last night. As my fan whirred along side my bed, I stared up at the ceiling and wondered what ultimatums might daughter might someday give me and equally so, how I might respond. (Maybe she already has and I have already responded?)

Would she tell me I am too fat, too short, too loud, too uneducated, not a good enough mother to her brothers, dont dress properly for my age, or what?

My belief is that if she were to ever say any of those things to me, I would take my own mothers approach and tell her to "stuff it". LOL. No seriously. (Well, seriously, my mother would tell me that and has when I have corrected her or demanded things of her. She is also good for telling me to go pound sand). On second thought, that stuff it would be my first internal reaction, but my likely external reaction would be to tell her I found her words offensive, hurtful and to ask if we could talk further about them. I have a pretty high emotional IQ and have had enough to therapy to think before I react. But what about the mothers that havent had the benefit of what I have?

I suppose, for me, the delivery of such information or request would make a huge diffierence. If my daughter said "I wish you would not smoke. It concerns me for your health and I want you to be around as long as possible", I might be touched and it might actually lead to me ceasing smoking. (I dont smoke, btw). But if she said "Smoking is disgusting. You are disgusting and if you dont stop I wont be around you", I might have to tell her to take a long walk on a short pier.

But still, I am curious, where does this come from?

Does this conditional love for mothers in reunion vary by adoptee?

Is this fantasy related? Trying to obtain the mother they dreamed of versus the mother they really have?

Is it age/maturity related?

How should a mother respond to such demands?

Do we, as in years past, become someone we are not to satifsy the wants of others or do we push back and risk losing our child again?

Love and Acceptance

"Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens.” - Wayne Dyer

The RightThing shared an interesting comment regarding her mother asking her why she loved her.

This would not surprise me at all if a first mother were to ask this of the child she surrendered to adoption.

From my perspective, as a mother, I would indeed find myself surprised if my daughter were to ever say she loved me. (Shoot, I would be surprised if she said she liked me). For me, this surprise is likely rooted in a number of things, the most obvious of which is rejection and abandonment.

When you, as an unwed mother, are rejected and abandoned by all you love (boyfriend, parents, etc.) you find yourself wondering why or how anyone could love you subsequent to that. More importantly, when so many fail you at such a time of need, you are hesitant to trust anything they say going forward. If your own family rejects you, why wouldn't strangers? Why wouldn’t your child whom you left in the care of those very strangers also reject you?

Furthermore, for many of us, becoming pregnant out of wedlock is deemed such an egregious act that we are certain we will never be loved again. We are dirty, tainted and branded. We are so bad and awful that our child had to be taken from us. We don’t deserve love. We have violated our familial values, our church teaching and threatened the fabric of society. Who loves that? When your own family, the friends and loved ones that KNOW you discard you, why should your child - raised away from you - love you?

Finally, and most importantly, when you learn how horrible adoption is for some adoptees, how much our children can hate us for giving them that so called "better life", why would we ever think they would love us?

When our children are eaten up inside with anger over their adoption and we are believed to be the single root cause of that pain and anger, why would they love us? When they are adopted and abused by those adopters – and we held responsible for putting them in that position – why would they love us?

I do believe it is possible and can and does happen. I can use my own mother as an example.

I love my mother without question. I can share a million wonderful wacky things about her. She is a great grandmother, a good friend to her friends. She is silly and playful. She has a quick wit and a good sense of humor. She has amazing blue eyes. She love to garden. She takes care of my father even when he does not deserve it or abuses her. She makes a good macaroni salad (with tuna). She is a loving godmother to her goddaughter, my cousin Lauren. She has an infectious laugh (it is more like a very loud giggle). She frequently goes without so her children can have things they need.

I can also tell you many things I don’t like about her. I can tell you some awful things she has done to me. I can tell you how she, as noted, abandoned me in my time of greatest need. I can suggest that my learned behavior of being abandoned by my mother taught me it was okay to abandon my own child.

I could go on and on with a mixture of love and angst over my mother.

But in the end, she is my mother. She is human. She may not be the mother I wanted, or the best mother for me, or the mother I dreamed of, but she is my mother.

It is my choice to love my mother. I do it for myself and not for her.

I can choose to live my life in anger and bitterness over what she did to me. I can pick apart her bad, flawed parts. I can tell her that if she does not stop smoking I won’t love her. I can tell her if she does not leave my father I will not be around her. I can give her all sorts of ultimatums intended to make her into the mother I want versus the mother I have.

But I don’t.

I do for her what I would want her to do for me. I can love her unconditionally.

I can love her for all that is good in her and tolerate or manage or work around all that is inherently human and as such, flawed. When she was smoking, I just avoided the topic or her when she was. She knew how I felt about it. No need to beat a dead lung. When she catered to my abusive father, I removed myself from the room or the house so that I did not have to witness it. Again, she knew my thoughts on the matter. Continuing to insist she do what I would do in that situation only managed to upset and offend her and in the end damage our relationship. If I wanted her to respect my decisions and my life, I had to give her the same courtesy.

It is easy to love the wonderful parts of someone. For me, true love manifests itself in loving the ucky stuff.

Can, or should, an adoptee love their mother in reunion? Goodness. I hope so.

I have to believe it. I have to believe for me, for my daughter, for all our future mothers and children.

I hope so.

For what is our other option? To allow the awfulness created by the adoption industry to permeate our lives forever? To allow them to win? To prove them right that the mother child bond means nothing and can be broken without consequence? To let them believe that mommies can be replaced and that our children are mere objects to be bought and sold without recourse or emotion?

I hope not.

It Will Always Be Yes

Our lives are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us” - John Powell

In discussing painful reunions with a friend of mine, she sent me this. She is an adoptee in a difficult reunion and I, of course, am a mother. Our reunions are at times mirror reflections of the other.

A recent bump in her reunion caused her to search for words to share with her mother.  She came upon these and in reading them, I was equally touched. 

I found the last paragraph particularly impactful for I can count the number of times my daughter has suggested I cannot, or should not, love her. 

As her mother, that is not an option for me and never was.   Whether she wants me to or not, I will always love her and will always be here.

"People act, and especially relate to other people, in accordance with the way they think of and feel about themselves.

I can easily trace your obnoxious behavior to the invisible roots of an unsuccessful struggle for self-esteem, until you hurt me. Then my own psychological scars begin to ache, and I stop thinking about you and your needs. I stop trying to understand you and I am tempted to hurt you. I must tell you this. It is very important that you know it. I want to offer you unconditional love. I really know you need it and I want to fulfill your needs so that you may be fully alive. But I am not able to do this. I am not able to give you the unconditional love you need. My own needs are too real, too limiting, too crippling. I can only say that I will do what I can. I can only ask you to be patient with me.

I want you to know that I do know what you need, even when I cannot give it to you. My own limitations and weakness will impede my performance, but I know that my greatest contribution to your life will be to help you love yourself, to think better and more gently on yourself, to accept your own limitations and more peacefully in the perspective of your whole person, which is uniquely valuable. To give you all that you need would require a wholeness in me that I do not have. I cannot always come through for you as you need me to. I am living at the outer rim of my own ideals, hanging on only with great effort. But I can promise you this much. I will try. I will try to always reflect to you your unique and unrepeatable value and worth. I will try to be a mirror to your beauty and goodness. I will try to read your heart, not your lips. I will always try to understand rather than judge you. I will never demand that you meet my expectations as the price of admission to my heart.

So do not ask me why I love you. Such a question could invite only the response of conditional love. I do not love you because you look a certain way or do certain things or practice certain virtues. Only ask me this: “Do you love me?” That I can answer: “Yes”. " - John Powell

Giving Up Wishes

""But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened?" - George Eliiot, Mill on the Floss

Her Burberry handbag fell off her lap as she started to sob. I leaned over to help her retreive the contents that had spilled over onto the dirty linoleum floor.

It felt odd to be picking up the contents of strangers purse but it was clear she was in no shape to do it herself.

The Coach wallet, green Clinique compact, and Dior Black Out mascara items amused me. They could have come from my own purse. As I placed them back into her bag and handed it to her, I also reached for a tissue and gave it to her.

The support group leader, a elderly woman with an MSW and years of experience treating families of divorce, continued on.

My Burberry purse friend, a surgeons wife (or more appropriately, ex wife), whimpered softly beside me. I scooted my chair closer to her and put my hand on her knee. She looked up and offered a weak smile of thanks.

"Many survivors of divorce often cite the hardest part of grieving is in what I call giving up the wish" she said.

"What this means is that during the year or years following your divorce you will experience moments of painful grief. You will be celebrating a holiday and find yourself missing your spouse. You may then find yourself crumpled on the bathroom floor aching for things to be as they were supposed to be, as they should be, as they are currently happening in your neighbors’ house across the cul-de-sac. You may spend time fantasizing about reconciliation. You may even take steps towards it. You may work too hard at getting your ex to come back home, to love you again. This is the wish. The wishes for things to be that simply are not and will not be again."

Burberry person friend emits a fairly loud groan. I am startled and quickly retract my hand from her knee.

Noticing the state Burberry purse lady is in; the support group leader suggests a bio-break. I gladly accept.

As an unfortunate number of ex-wives and two soon-to-be ex-husbands wander around in search of coffee, a bathroom or a nicotine fix, I wander outside and ponder leaving.

The support group leader is annoying me. Her voice and accompanying appearance remind me of Edna "E" Mode from The Incredibles. Her glasses are a bit too large for her small head and even smaller frame. The bob hairdo doesn’t help matters. Each time she talks about surviving divorce I find myself wanting to stand up and scream "Go! Confront the problem! Fight! Win! And call me when you get back, dahhhling,..."

I ponder the concept of "Giving Up the Wish" and it reminds me, as so much in my life does, of adoption reunion.

That is exactly where I am at.

Giving up the wish for what could have, should have, and might have been and learning to accept what is.

It isn’t easy.

Motherhood does not come with an off switch. I cannot stop caring about my child simply because she or others tell me too. However, I suppose I could find a different way to care. I could also lower my expectations.

Burberry Purse approaches me and smiles.

"Thanks for picking up my purse and giving me the tissue. Sweet of you" she says.

"No worries. It seemed you needed to cry a bit. I understand" I respond.

"Yeah, I did. I think I still do. I am not so sure I can give up that wish but I think I have to try." Burberry says.

Me too, Burberry, me too.

Preparing

"In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.” - Edward de Bono

My ex-husband was a volunteer firefighter for most of our marriage. Our free time was regularly interrupted by fire calls, false alarms, emergency water rescues, burning latex foam factories and the occasional storm watch.

Storm watches required him to spend many hours at the firehouse in preparation for any possible fallout from a storm. He would leave me alone with our son only after he had given me the run down on the emergency supplies in our own home and what I should do in case of emergency. While many would find this sweet and caring, I usually found it comical. I often teased him.

My ex husband was incredibly over prepared. I swear he was expecting the Apocalypse for our basement was filled with water, food, blankets, light sources, heat sources, and even those pills you take  in the event you have been exposed to radiation. Before he left our home for the station, I was required to follow a drill that assured him I knew where to go, what to do in the case of various emergencies (tornado, hurricane, flood, terrorism, etc.). It was cute at first, sweet even, but after the tenth or so drill it gets annoying and eventually ridiculous.

I would joke with my mother about this and while she agreed my husband went a bit overboard she noted that in the event something did happen, we would likely survive in pretty decent shape compared to other unprepared neighbors.

I thought of that preparation today when I read a comment on the blog of a friend. She is recently in reunion and while it is going very well (her son found her) she is struggling with how little preparation she had. She had no idea he might find her (although she always hoped he would) and now that he has she worries she is not performing as she should. She is worried she is sad when she should be happy. Angry when she should be relieved. Depressed when she should be joyous. Her final statement was that she wished she had been more prepared and had done more healing before he found her.

An anonymous commenter responded by saying that no amount of preparing or alleged healing would have made any difference.

I had to completely disagree.

While I continue to challenge and question what it means to "heal" from adoption, I do believe there are things we can do to prepare ourselves or minimize the pain reunion can cause us.

Prior to actually finding my daughter I invested a great deal of time in reading about adoption, trauma, primal wound, reunion and much more. I joined support groups. I attended conferences. I lurked on forums and ingested every morsel of insight. I devoured information on PTSD. I became obsessed with ethics. I entered therapy (again) and finally began to really address the greatest pain of my life - becoming pregnant by a man I loved, being sent away and eventually losing my daughter to a broker despite my desire to the contrary.

Personally, for me, I do believe all this work prepared me for reunion and minimized some of the challenges associated with same. While I could never have been fully prepared, I do believe that it was of great help and I encourage all moms I know who are considering searching to read, talk, share, interact as much as they can with other adoption torched indivduals prior to finding their child.

While I am confident I have made mistakes in my reunion, I am more confident I would have made many more had I not been somewhat prepared in advance.

Unequivocally I can state that my advanced preparation for reunion allowed me to see that when my daughter rejects ME it is not ME as a person she is rejecting (she doesn't even know me). Rather, it is the agony, confusion, painful feelings, trauma, primal wound and such that she is avoiding. I am merely the physical manifestation of that pain. Since I believe there is much to be hurt and angry and confused by in adoption, I don't take her rejection as much to heart as I might have if I could not make that distinction. Since adoption loss, for mothers, carries so much rejection (rejected by our boyfriends, rejected and discarded by our families, our churches, the agencies and society as whole by removing our names from birth certificates) it can extremely difficult to keep anger and pain associated with the first rejection separate from a possible rejection by our child. How easy it could be to let loose a tidal wave of rage on our children once we find them! How awful it would be to do so. It is not their fault. They were the ultimate victims in this game of adoption.

So, to my friend, while you feel you were not adequately prepared for reunion, I dare  counter your commenter. You could have been, to some degree. But don't be discouraged.You still can be.

The beauty of learning is that it can be done at any time. Start today. I can point you to a great list of books, some forums, and other useful supporting items.

Oh, and  if you are ever in need of twenty Coleman lamps, fifty-two boxes of water and food supplies, forty blankets, sixty-seven potassium iodine pills, feel free to contact me.

I Sat With It

“I understand with love comes pain, but why did I have to love so much?” - Unknown

To the many individuals that have been emailing me and those that haven't but have been wondered, I can assure you I wrote my daughter back. In fact, I wrote her several times.

It is my nature to confirm receipt of a message and inform the sender that I received it but don't have time or emotional fortitude to respond at the time. I feel this is incredibly important with painful, emotionally loaded, email exchanges as a lack of confirmation can be easily construed as either passive aggressive or angry or worse. I did not want her to ever think I was ignoring her or that I was angry.

I took several days to process her email (and I shared and talked with many of you) and eventually I decided to not respond. I don't mean not respond in the sense of sending nothing. I mean in the sense that I felt it was best just to say "I heard you. Your feelings are valid. Thank you for trusting me with them".

I did not get the sense she wanted any direction, input, commentary or disagreement from me. She merely wanted me to see the degree of her angst and how conflicted she is.

I saw it.

I could have responded and debated her. I could have challenged her on some of her statements. I could have gone round and round with her. But to what end? For what purpose? To prove I am right and she is wrong? To get her to like me more? To make my point and have her see me? To invalidate her? To tell her how clueless she is on some things? No good would come of any of that.

She has her reality and I have mine. I am as entitled to mine as she is to hers. Its challenging at best that they are so vastly different but it is reality.

Furthermore, and probably most importantly, I deeply felt that responding in depth would be like walking into emotional quicksand. I could have wiggled and screamed and jiggled only to sink deeper and faster. My debating her feelings or challenging them would only make things worse.

No quicksand for me.

In summary, I took the Oriah Mountain Dreamer approach (and I quoted this passage from The Invitation in my response to her).  Specifically:

"I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it."

I sat with her pain and did my best not to hide, fade or fix it.

Only time will tell if I took the right approach.

A Thank You

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many thanks to all of you for your supportive comments. Additional thanks to Joy, Dan, Beth, Margie, Marianne, Liz, Jane and everyone else that wrote me privately.

I greatly appreciate your kind thoughts, your insight, and the depth of your caring. Many of your emails moved me to tears.

I am going to cease discussing this topic going forward.

I am okay. Really.  As the Japanese proverb says "fall seven times, stand up eight".

I am standing up.