The sisterhood of first mother loss at the holiday

Sent by my alternate universe daughter 

We had a Christmas lunch at our house yesterday--friends came by for Champagne punch and sustenance. Two guys my husband made sure to introduce to each other were both Vietnam vets. One was a journalist who was captured and briefly imprisoned; the other was a Naval officer who had spent two years in combat. After my husband made the introduction, they spent a long time talking. Later my husband said: It's the most intense experience of their lives--no one who hasn't been through it can quite understand. My husband was in the Army between conflicts, and after ROTC, only spent six months on active duty. But he understood immediately why these two men would bond.

Finding peace as a first mother on Christmas

Lorraine at home, Christmas brunch for friends last Sunday

It's that time of year again, where the Christmas carolers and crowds crawling the aisles of the stores remind of us of family, family known and family lost. It is particularly hard to be a "lost mother" at this time. I know. I spent many years lost in the wilderness of not knowing where my daughter was.

Even before we get to Christmas Day, the reminders are everywhere and no more obvious than when shopping. We want to buy presents for our children, no matter their age. For those not in reunion, there are those questions: Where to send it? How to send it? Today we learn that only a very small percentage of adoptions are fully closed--

Does my (birth) mother think of me on Christmas?

My tabletop tree

Christmas, not April, is the cruelest time for many of us. All the gaiety, the awareness that families gather round together sharpen the reminder of who is missing: if you are a birth/first mother who has not been reunited, you are ever so aware of the presents you are not buying, the card not being sent, the phone call not made to the missing child. You wonder if he/she ever thinks of you at this time of the year. Question not. He is. My daughter said that she used to look at the moon on cold and clear winter nights, and think that somewhere I was under that same moon, wondering if I was thinking about her. I'll never know if our thoughts collided in space, but I like to think that they did.

The Christmas Spirit and Adoption Sorrow

Lorraine

It's that time of year again, where the Christmas carolers and crowds crawling the aisles of the stores remind of us of family, family known and family lost. I won't lie: the holidays before I knew my daughter Jane were pure hell. I'd fly home to Detroit to spend a few days with my mother, year after year, with a husband, without a husband, and there we would be on Christmas morning at Mass, the choir would sing Silent Night, one of the oldest and most common of carols, with a melody so stirring when it hits the high notes, and my eyes would flush with tears. Where was my daughter, my only child whom I relinquished for adoption?