Grocery Cart Kisses

I missed them. The Grocery Cart Kisses.... You know the scene you can see several times at the grocery store on any given afternoon. You stop in to the market on a crowded Saturday for apples, paper towels and hot dog buns; or a make a quick stop in after work for pasta, salad and french bread and you see it.

A mother finishes paying for her food and then scoops her child up from the front of the cart and delivers a kiss to her child's sweet, chubby cheek. I believe that those kisses are part of the daily dose of affection manifesting the love that helps to center a child in his or her sense of being and well being.

I missed giving all of those grocery shopping kisses. So many of them. I am still horrified and angry that I was not deemed worthy enough to raise my own child and that some social worker was allowed to choose who would raise my precious child.

Sometimes it just hits me like a freight train when I allow myself to really, really think about another woman raising my child. A woman about whom I really know very little. My adult child keeps us all very separate. I believe that is the coping mechanism which allows him keep all of his parents in his life.

A few years ago, I was standing in line behind a woman at the grocery store. The woman behind me was talking to her and I was caught in a cross fire of adoption conversation. The woman behind asked of the woman in front of me how her newly adopted child was adjusting.

She actually asked, " Is the child affectionate to you.? " Excuuuuse me, unenlightened woman!!!!???"....I felt like wringing her neck.

This poor baby had just been stripped of her country, heritage, language and family and had been brought across the ocean to her brand new and "better" life to live with complete strangers. And now she was expected to be "affectionate?"

So much wrong is with adoption.......

Having a bad adoption day.

Coming Further Out

Yesterday, I went to my supervisor to ask about the possibility of my first born being added to the list of my children who receive some pretty nice perks.

My voice shook and wavered and I know that I sounded like I might cry. However, I did not cry.
Huge relief! I know that several years ago, I would not have even been able to get the words out of my mouth to a supervisor that I unwillingly surrendered my child to adoption due to lack of support from my family and the family of my child's father.

I asked if my supervisor would entertain my request and guide me to someone who could answer my question. She agreed to take my request to another supervisor.

I struggled beforehand, though. Will I loose my job over this? Is there some morals clause that I didn't notice when I accepted an offer of hire? Some of the old shame came back. My instinct to duck and cover and simply disappear returned.

I think that I have been able to heal, some. I am asking if my oldest child can be added to my list of family with this employer.

I needed to ask for myself and for him. Even if my question gets a "no", I did it for my self and for my son. I want my son to know that I finally stood up for him and claimed him as my son to an "authority".

Yet, if my employer does decline my request, will that be one more hurt for him? One more piece of evidence, a slap in the face that his was given away; that his mother let him go?

I am slightly morose, today with Mother's Day around the corner...another difficult day in adoptoland.

Adoptoland is not a term I coined. It fits though.

Once I was reunited and emerged from the completely dark, "TUNNEL OF if you LOVE your baby, you will surrender him" I was able to see finally see this amusement park of adoption where I live. Some of the rides here are exhilarating..such as finally getting to see the wonderful face of my son. Sometimes, however, I am pulled down by some kind of g force inertia onto a ride that will not stop spinning and makes me naseated... I literally want to throw up and for as long as I struggle, I cannot undo the buckle by myself. This park has a fence I cannot scale. Where is the damned exit??? Oh yeah, it disappeared for me with a timed out period of revocation ( which I believe I was lied to about) and 25 years of time.

Yeah..I am not a happy guest in adoptoland. Happy to be reunited; but not happy to be here in the first place.

Thoughts After a Break

What a long break in time since I have posted. It is also my spring break from school so this week I got out of here for a very short trip to NYC. I got way from the suburbs and went to Manhattan. I cannot at all picture myself living in my 60's, 70's (and hopefully beyond that!) in the suburbs. When the children I had/have the great privilege of raising were babies, my neighborhood was a morgue and it is still with no humans seen on the street during the daytime. Only at night are humans spotted. So, as soon as my "baby" is out of the nest; I. Am. Outta here.

I feel absolutely trapped in the burbs. I need people around; a coffee shop on the corner, a church a couple of blocks away in which to take a short respite during the day, and lots of children, teenagers and many, many voices and lovely, lively chatter around me as I listen out my window or climb up onto a city bus.

And I have been preparing the husband by my not so subtle hints. He is slow to change and I think that he needs the idea spoon fed to him over the next 7 years or so. That is all assuming that we can afford to live anywhere else with our mortgage nearly paid off!

Yesterday, I focused on getting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I spent a few hours there wandering though rooms filled with Roman and Greek statues and medieval art; not particularly inspiring to me; at least not yesterday. However, the display of pieces from New Guinea were amazing. The ancestor totem poles were unlike anything I have ever seen; detailed human forms stacked two high; foot upon shoulders. And I saw musical gongs that were carved from tree trunks which were 12 to 15 feet high! Astounding. I took pictures with my dumb little phone to try to send to my oldest son, a musician. I wonder if he has ever seen anything like these giant percussion instruments with faces carved at the top. They certainly have personality.

And in that particular gallery, a placard described how among one of these peoples, all deaths were believed to be caused by an enemy and were to be avenged. Quite a thought. (However, this does fit in oddly with my own theology in that all death is caused by an enemy. And does fit into Holy Week. I will, however, spare any reader my further thoughts on this and an ensuing pseudo sermon.)

Later on, I had a bowl of golden squash soup dotted with caraway seeds and prosciutto. Certainly, it was the most expensive bowl of soup I have ever had at $10; however the atmosphere was part of the bill. To hear the melodies of many languages all around me and to see a little patch of Central Park just out the glass wall was all worth the price of the soup.

Poor Jose the barristo; he just couldn't keep the cappuccinos flowing quickly enough. The waiters always to the counter, " Josito, Paco; dos cappuccinos y un platito." "Josito, tres cappuccinos." And he was serving all the counter customers, too. Pobrecito Jose. He needed more help at the counter, yesterday.

I think I went to Manhattan, in part, to take a break from the business and distractions I put into my life order to run away on a daily basis from the reality and the consequences of the surrender and the adoption of my son.

My trip worked for a while. Until I sat at the lunch counter and wondered what kind of day, my son, Paco, was having while working at his cafe 3000 miles away. Until, I waited on the street corner for a bus and thought that he grew up seeing NY license plates on the upstate roads and streets he traveled.

Central Park was domed yesterday by slate clouds and dotted by the sweet rows of white daffodils and glowing gold forsythia shrubs all swaying under cold, gray winds. Children played on soccer teams in little ravines and mothers pushed strollers along paths edged by bright spring green grass.

And again, I was stunned by the fact that it was another woman who pushed my son in stroller when he was little. And it was another mother who stopped to give him a snack and wipe his nose on chilly, windy spring days. And that it was another woman who had the enormous privilege of teaching him how to think about life and death and enemies and friends and most importantly about love. And another woman who had the privilege of teaching him how to view the beautiful being that he is and how to view the whole wondrous and stunningly beautiful world around him.

Three decades later and this shocks me. It is absurd that my family and my son's father's family thought it was acceptable that our son be handed over to complete strangers. And that my son's father and I were never to know what had become of him. Never to know if he were dead or alive.

Oh...that is right. I always forget. I never will make it be a rational sequence of events. Silly me.
I think it is human nature to try to make sense of it, though.

And it is human nature to want to run from that which gives us pain. It is sheer survival that a mother goes into denial when her child is gone and she is powerless to know or do anything about it.

I tried to take a break from surrender and adoption, yesterday. Well, sort of a break.

Today it is back to the suburbs for me. Back to the realities of adoption and reunion. Back to trying to love my son as best as I can with the real consequences of surrender and adoption in the mix. Back to living my life with the disabling consequences of surrender and adoption.

I would not wish being a surrendering mother on anyone; not upon even upon an enemy.

Mommas, I hope you do all you can to keep your babies with you. Fight now, while you can.

Dad

Dad,

Thank you for the birthday card and the check. I used the money while on a short trip out to see my first born son. I needed the cash for travel and didn't have time to go to the bank. However, I am going to send the same amount to a young single mother who I know could use a bit of extra cash.

You must be settled into your winter home by now. Just before you left, we met for a supper and I asked you if you were going to arrive in time to practice for your choir's Christmas concert.
You said that the spring concert is the most important and that it didn't matter to you so much if you were in town for all of the Christmas concert rehearsals.

I am proud of you. You are in your seventies and still singing. You sing with a choir in your winter home and I am so proud that you still use your voice simply because it brings you joy. And I am proud that it is a part of you.

When I was a girl, one of the most beautiful memories I have is standing next to you in church and being able to hear your singing voice, especially at Easter time. There are some Easter hymns that can flash me right back into a pew of our church.

Mom sang, too. And she played piano. The music comes from you both, you know. All five of my sons sing. Some have more musical inclination than others; but all are artists. A couple of them bury it all down within themselves or only allow it to be channeled out in a way that they feel in control of "it."

That intangible "it". The "it" that is the music; the talent, the charisma. That performance gene.

Do you ever think of the son I lost? You never speak of him. I have some empathy for you. I can try to imagine how horrible it would be to be closer to the end of your life than to the beginning and realize that one of your grandchildren, the firstborn of your firstborn, was legally severed and physically torn apart from your family.

You lost horribly. My son lost horribly. He needed to be with you. You needed to be with him.

Do you know that his grandfather, whom he loves dearly, shares the same exact name as him? Yet, my son, the musician, told me that his grandfather does not much enjoy music.

Are you not at least a little bit horrified to hear that?

Yes, I am angry still with you for your part in the loss of my son to adoption. So very angry, at times. I try to forgive you and sometimes I think I have forgiven, until I come further out of the denial and realize another consequence of my son's surrender and adoption; only to be slapped back into the pain and anger.

I try to imagine what you were thinking when he was born. Just this morning, I was thinking that maybe the surrender happened, in part, because you and mom were born just after the depression and that you grew up with parents who were still reeling from it. And I know you lost your mom when you were only 16. I am so sorry. And I can only imagine how that affected you. You helped raise your baby brother and then enrolled in college for one year until you went into the service. And that was the end of your college career.

So, there I was a sophomore in college when my son was born; seeming to repeat your pattern.
And I was the first on both sides of the family to who might graduate from college. Raising my son did not fit into those plans, did they? Surrender and adoption were the plans that would get me back on the track that you had in mind for me.

Why wasn't raising my son and keeping him in our family acceptable to you? Did you not like yourself enough for me to be like you?

Why didn't you trust me to raise my son and eventually finish my degree? With your support and temporary financial help, I could have done both. You and mom were not struggling financially and even if you had been, money or lack of it should not be reason for life long loss of a child from any family.

I got the degree. Two in fact, Dad, but I would exchange them both in a heartbeat to have had the priviledge of raising my son.

Do you remember the fall after my son was born? He was 5 months old at the time and 4 months gone from our family. We had really no idea if he was dead or alive. Does that thought not horrify you?

You drove me back to college for the start of my junior year. I had rented an off campus apartment that fall which was located way out on a country road. You stopped at the store and bought me a bike for getting to and from campus.

I think now that the return trip to campus and the bicycle purchase must have made you feel "as if" your daughter had been transformed back to her premotherhood state. In your mind, was that drive back to Wisconsin a form of time travel? A "do over" for me? There are no "do overs", Dad. Only illusions of them.

I know that I can't travel back and get my baby. So many years have been lost. My son and I are reunited and his existence and knowing him are pure joy for me. I am able to separate the relationship that we have now from all the lost time. However, our relationship is mounted upon a longterm separation and at times the pain of that separation is horrendous.

I am sorry for you that you do not know him. When I was with him a few weeks ago, I saw so many of your mannerisms and heard the inflection of your voice in his. Why should I be surprised? He is your grandson.

November is both joyous and melancholy for me, Dad. In November of 2001, I saw my son's face, again, for the first time in over 25 years. That was the sweetest and most joyous day of my life. November also brings memories of that first fall without my son. I remember walking by the fields to and from campus. Only in those quiet moments alone, could I allow myself to really think of my son. Emotionally, I was was in a state of shock and physically was just going through the motions of being a student.

I do remember hearing the music while walking along the road. I couldn't bear to feel the vibrations of the grief inside my heart and body. The only sad vibrations I was able to feel were outside of me and all around me in the fields. I heard the wind strumming of the dry rows of corn stalks like guitar strings. And the only singing I heard was the despairing hum of the wind's voice weaving itself through the dark branches of the solitary oaks at the edge of the road.

When you sing in the spring, I hope you remember him. His birthday is in the spring and only couple of weeks before yours. Do you remember his birthday?

Me.

Makes me want to scream!

Yesterday at the airport, I saw a couple with a little boy of about 2 years old. I did a triple take as I was so confused. However, not as confused as I think this little boy will be in about 10 years or so.

The woman was pushing the child in a stroller and the man was nearby. The boy had beautiful light brown skin; black hair and bright brown eyes. The woman clearly belongs to a religious group. She was wearing a long prairie style cotton dress and wore her hair up in a little white bonnet. She had very light skin as did the man.

I am so enraged for the young child. I do realize that I do not know the circumstances of these people. Maybe, they are just caring for him? I really don't know.

Here is my big "however". However, I can't help but surmise that they have adopted this little boy. And I can't help but feel for him and want to scream for what probably lies ahead for him. I think that for him there will be great confusion, massive oscillations of anger and oppressive periods of struggling to find his identity.

When I am not working at the airport, I work at an immersion school. One of my students is adopted from South America. He is the sweetest kid. I am not as enraged for him because at least he is learning Spanish and someday, if he chooses to find his mother, will be able to speak with her.

I have lived long enough to have learned that you really don't know about someone from appearances. I am guilty of ignoring that premise today and after having seen this little group of travelers, I simply want to scream.

Trigger at Work Yesterday

I was starting to work my first flight of the morning when a man of about 55 or 60 came to my counter. He wanted to verify that the inbound flight he was expecting was arriving soon at my gate.

I verified for him that the plane was scheduled to arrive to that gate but the flight had been delayed.

He explained that he was meeting his grandchild who was just 5 days old.

I said that the mother was certainly traveling quite soon after having delivered a baby.

He paused, not seeming to quite to understand me. And then said that his son and daughter in law were adopting.

They were scheduled to arrive at my gate.

I remained professional and suggested to the man that he watch for any gate changes.

My own flight schedule changed, so I went off to a different gate.

However, I couldn't forget about what was happening a few gates down. Should it really be legal to take a child from his or her mother at only 3 or 4 days of age?

My heart is breaking for a new mother three states away from her child.

Oversold

Last weekend, was tough at the airport. The storms on the east coast had a ripple effect here in Minneapolis. Flights were canceled. And some flights were overbooked for the next few days.

I work as a gate agent sending out the regional jets; 50 to 75 seaters. And I send the prop planes that have 34 seats. I send passengers to all parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and a a couple of cities in Canada. But also to Montana, Ohio, and some cities on the east coast.

I send flights to an east coast city that is the city in which my son spent most of his growing up years. I didn't know, of course, where he grew up until reunion.

For decades, I did not know if my son was dead or alive. And if he was alive, I had no idea of where in this great wide world he was growing up.

Occasionally at the airport, I am assigned to organize the flight to this city, board the passengers. and send the flight. And it is always triggering for me. The PSTD kind of triggering.

My anxiety shoots up and I can't work this flight without wondering if that middle age woman who looks like a teacher was his science teacher in high school. Or, if that one couple wainting so patiently, lives down the street from his old house. I wonder if the young man who's ID states he's a resident of the same city 'burb in which my son grew up, graduated from high school with him.

Working that flight really is difficult for me. However, when the flight is uncomplicated and easy, I have been able to desensitize myself enough so that I can successfully work it and send it out on time.

When last weekend was a huge mess at the airport, I was assigned the flight to city of my son's childhood. It was a bad situation. Oversold and no seats on any flights to send people on for 3 days. It is pretty hard to convince people to volunteer giving up their seats when there is no flight available for three days. It was all I could do to keep the triggers down and work the flight.

And there was a young girl, traveling as an unaccompanied minor who had a very hard time saying good bye to her dad at the gate. Parents and kids saying good bye is sometimes hard to watch while doing my job.

The flight eventually went. I got it out and had to try to get two people who were stuck in Minneapolis to this city, somehow. After about almost another hour working on it, we did get them rebooked.

So, the next day, while riding the shuttle back to the airport for work, I decided that I needed to help myself avoid such a triggering night by never working that city when the flight is oversold. I know I can work it when it is not oversold or weight restricted. I can successfully manage to keep anxiety at bay when it is a smooth flight to work. And I decided that whenever I am assigned to work that particular east coast city and it is oversold, I will ask for a different city or ask for another person to work it with me.

It was a decision for self care/preservation. I don't need to subject my body and mind to that kind of PSTD related stress.

I clocked in, checked my concourse assignment and headed back up to the B concourse, where I had worked the previous night. I picked up my flight assignment schedule, and saw that once again, I was assigned to this same city. Knowing it was probably oversold again, I checked. Just As I expected... Oversold with nothing available for 2 days.

So when I saw the coordinator, I told her that I needed to talk to her about my schedule.
I told her that I couldn't do that city when it was oversold. I would take another oversold flight or even an extra flight that night, but that I couldn't work that flight.

She wanted to know why. And I told her why. And I told her about how things were different in the 70's. And that single mothers were not supported. She said she understood that things were different, then.

She is also a young single mother to be. I think she is several years younger than my oldest son.
And I asked her if she had a lot of support. She said that she does. I am so relieved to hear that.

She also had a lot of questions about my reconnection with my son. The questions she asked made me wonder if she was adopted.

I am thinking that it was perhaps, "meant to be" that this young woman was my flight cord last Saturday night. And it was good that she heard what it was like years ago. I got a chance to tell her that maternity homes are making a comeback and marketed as a resort for young mothers, rather than the prison like maternity homes of decades past. Sadly, the adoption is the same goal for even the modern day institution. And she heard me say that I would never wish any mother to be unnecessarily separated from her child by adoption.

32 years later, I am still sad that I was oversold on adoption for my son. I didn't willingly sign the surrender papers, but I unwittingly and willingly walked into the lion's den of a center for "unwed mothers" in 1975.

I'll tell you what I am grateful for. I am grateful that this young mother to be has alot of support.
I am grateful I had a chance to tell her my story. I am grateful that I am getting healthier in my post surrender recovery and can be proactive in reducing one big triggering situation that is adoption related.

If this young mom to be is an adoptee, I do hope that she feels comfortable enough to ask me more about reunion and searching.

And to my first born son, I send a cargo full of love on the next flight out to the city where you are now! Even if that flight is oversold and weight restricted, I know there is plenty of room for all my good thoughts and wishes to send to you.