March Madness

My head sometimes hurts. Gonna explode hurts. Not because of my work.
And not because I have four kids I am raising... and one I did not...

It is because that during the last five years since I have been reunited with my son, I have been trying to make sense of his adoption. And make sense of what happened to me since his surrender. It is difficult to absorb where he was and what happened to him for 25 years and to make sense of why he was not with me for 25 years. And to know why I was not deemed worthy enough of the dignity to know what had become of my son. And why my son was not deemed worthy of the human dignity and right to know what had become of me or his father.

In only the past 5 years I have begun to see how my whole family; my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, my grandmother, and mostly how my other children have been affected by the surrender and legal amputation of my son from our family.

I have been sometimes exhausted. Simply exhausted; mostly mentally and emotionally. I have dear friends who have said to me, "You keep trying to make sense of it, but adoption is crazy. It will never make sense."

But I really, really want to have things make sense. Or at least be logical in a convoluted way. The surrender and adoption of my son will never make sense. It will never make sense to me that other mothers were and continue to be coerced and separated from their children. It is simply madness to me.

I hope to come to greater acceptance of what happened by my son's adoption and to greater acceptance of what "is" in our lives. However, I do believe that I will always be simply horrified that it ever happened in the first place.

My oldest son's birthday falls right in the middle of March. I was talking to my 9 year old son this afternoon while we were outside on one of the first mild spring days of the month. It was of those sensory confusing days in Minnesota when you can close your eyes to rest in radiant sunlight and suck in sweet warm air which smells of the earth. But then you open up your eyes to see neighhood kids wearing their summer shorts and standing in the three foot high snow mounds near the curb. They are lobbing crusty, crunchy snowballs at some friends who are whizzing by on bikes that have just been reclaimed from the garage.

During our short conversation, my youngest helped clear away some of this confusing March madness for me. I suggested to the 9 year old that we could call him to say "happy birthday". As my youngest continued to ride his red bike beside me, I also said that he (my oldest) says he thinks of us as family.

My youngest then said that he doesn't have to "think" of his brother as family. He said that he just "is" family.

How simple is that? Makes sense.