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Edwards Hirsch |
Although I have compassion for Edward Hirsch and Janet Landay, I have to believe that if they had known something about the effects of adoption, their son might be alive today. Instead he died of an overdose in 2011 at age 22. The elegy Hirsch wrote for him is the subject of a
New Yorker article "Finding the Words" by Alec Wilkinson.
Hirsch and Landay adopted their son, whom they named Gabriel after the Biblical Gabriel, at six days. Although Gabriel was born in 1988, when open adoptions were advocated by adoption professionals and were becoming commonplace, Gabriel was adopted in a closed adoption, arranged by attorneys. The parents' ignorance about adoption--admittedly this is a harsh word--is sorely evident throughout