Feelin' Blue about Mother's Day

Whoa! The other day I thought I was going to sail through this Mother's Day with nary a problem...my daughter took her life two years ago--I might as well put it out there rather than not, that's what happened--and my mother died eleven years ago on the first of May, and so, I stupidly, thought, well, Mother's Day and all it's friggen' reminders will just sail over me, just as Linda remarked about her own feelings in her comment to the last post, To Search or Not: That is the question for adoptees/birth mothers.

What's Mother's Day got to do with me this year?  I am neither the daughter of a living mother or the mother of a living daughter, though I have been both. I'm cool, right?

Fool that I am.

Yesterday afternoon I got stomped on somewhat by an angry adoptee over at Facebook for posting a comment on the site You Know You're Adopted When...and that led to a group of adoptees who have read the blog remarking on what they do not like about BirthMother, First Mother Forum....including the name, because if we are first mothers, what does that make their other mothers? And that depressed me because I'm thinking, damn, I picked the name because I thought it would be easy to remember, and because, well, I'm not crazy about the appellation "birth mother," whether one word or two, but I will live with it because it's become part of the nomenclature. Hell, all of us, first/birth/natural/and adoptive: we all prefer just plain old "mother," no qualifiers.

But they do have a right to say, stay away, as there is also a Facebook page started that is You Know You are a First Mother When....It was the accusatory tone of the discourse, except for one of our regular readers who was sweet in her responses and saved my spirits, somewhat. But the incident put a black cloud over my feelings about continuing FirstMotherForum at all, and though you think these things do not bother you, there they are, gnawing at you, and then the Mother's Day !@#$. Ads on television. Ads in the New York Times this morning. Ads on the car radio--Shop at this local pharmacy, and we have a complete line of bath and grooming products for MOTHER'S DAY! Brunch special for MOM this coming Sunday! Et cetera, et cetera et cetera, as Yul Brunner so famously said as the King of Siam. 

No matter who much I've tried to tune out the drumbeat for Mother's Day, apparently I'm not doing so well. This morning I snapped at the clerk at the cable outlet when I picked up a new cable box. I was nice to the technician who gave me a mammogram later that morning, but when she asked if anyone in my immediate family ever had breast cancer, I thought of all those adopted people who can't answer that question, and asked her how that goes. She said it was sad, that they had to be super vigilant about their health, and get a lot of checkups and tests. I told her that it was the legislators' fault that it was that way. Probably I should have added it was the fault of adoptive-parent legislators (at least in New York) such as convicted felon Joe Bruno, long-time open-records opponent Steve Saland, and always nasty adoptive uncle Danny O'Donnell, New York past and present legislators, but I didn't think of that fast enough. (To all adoptive parents reading this, don't go bananas here, I know many of you are for giving adoptees their original birth certificates, and if that's the case, will you please write your legislator in whatever state you are and let him know? Hell, you might as well write President Obama, while you're at it. You spent enough time and money getting your child, spend some time to give him or her the right to know their true and complete identities and be equal to the rest of us.)

And now...now I just am feeling the tears inside me bubbling up and over and out. In the past, since all restaurants are jammed with mothers and daughters and mothers and sons come Mother's Day, I have invited people over for brunch myself. I have one friend whose mother was truly wretched and abusive and is now in a funny farm, and she and her husband are childless, and having them over on Sunday has worked in the past, but I'm thinking I'm just not up to that today. Maybe I will be by tomorrow.

For now, this birth mother says "Mother's Day" feels like hell.--lorraine

PS: And then...the mail arrives and it's a card from my step-son., Evan...and I say to his Dad, the indubitable Tony, I hope it's funny. I slide it out of the envelope and I see a vase with pink hydrangea: not funny. Then I read the greeting: Myslac z mitoscia o Tobie...it's in Polish from my Scottish/English/Welsh American step-son. And neither he or I have any idea what it says....I laugh. The inside message: w Dniu Matki i zawsze. Pozostan w mojej pamiece, i bada szczexliwa przez caty rok. 

And hand written in is Drogi Babci 'Raine, which I know means, Dear Grandma Raine...and it's signed: Fortunny Dzien od matka! Kochajacy...which I will have to have translated, but I know the root koch is love. (I am not doing the Polish justice because some of the letters have extras marks.)

Translation anyone? Maryanne?

Good job, Evan and Karen and Dylan!   

To Search or Not: That is the question for adoptees/birth mothers

With Mother's Day creeping up on us...I thought I would answer the adoptee who said she read several posts here and elsewhere and was basically wondering if she should search for her birth/first mother, since so reads about so much heartache and trouble post reunion. And I know searching will be on the minds of many as the newspapers are full of ads, the stores are full of cards, the restaurants are offering Sunday specials...for Mother's Day.

I can not answer for others, but as for myself, a first/birth/original mother who had relinquished a daughter, I could not help but search. I had to find out what happened to her. Not knowing was eating at me and would continue to gnaw through my nights and days until I found her. When I was getting married, and my life seemed otherwise full, I hired a searcher, paid him $1,200 through an intermediary--we never met--and my daughter and I were reunited, with her adoptive parent's blessing, when she was fifteen in 1981. End of story? Not quite. 

Many of you know my daughter Jane had myriad problems due to not only being relinquished, but also because she had epilepsy, and both issues led to neurotic behavior. She welcomed me into her life, saying she always wondered, especially on her birthdays, St. Patrick's Day, Christmas and New Year's and yes, Mother's Day, if I ever thought about her; she intended to search for her birth mother as soon as she turned eighteen, she said. That I found her first she counted a blessing.

Yet unlike her relationship with her other mother, her adoptive Mom--who in truth said plenty of really nasty things to her over the years, which Jane would tell me--our relationship was more fragile, sometimes tenuous. Even after we knew each other for decades, she could turn off and out and walk away on a dime when it suited her; the smallest irritation or perceived slight or wrong word that I hardly knew escaped my lips lent to agonizing days, weeks of soul-searching: What had I said wrong? What should I have done differently? What did I do? Once she ignored her email, changed her phone number, sent back a letter with REFUSED stamped on it. Now that's a rejection. 

A Deep Sense of Abandonment
Whether or not she ever admitted it--and she did not--she was imprinted with a primal sense of being abandoned, and she never truly forgave me, because she could not. When I read newspaper stories of reunions--written in the glow of the honeymoon stage--the often the adoptee finds that the word "abandoned" escapes from his mouth, and he then expresses surprise because, he tells the reporter, he never consciously thought of himself as abandoned. Yet there it is. And there it was deep inside my daughter. When she shut me out, it always felt as if she was determined to let me know: I'll show you how it feels to walk away. I'll show you that I don't need  you. I'll show you that I can get along just fine without you.

On the Internet, these are the kinds of relationships we hear about the most--the high of reunion, followed by the long slog of the lows. Birth/first mothers and adoptees with happy relationships are not writing about their successful, glorious reunions. Life has has highs and lows, many bumps in the road, and reunions between adopted people and the mothers who relinquished them have more bumps than otherwise. And we birth mothers have to accept what is, not what might have been.

There Were Good Times Too
To live a life with answers, with a real daughter, not an imagined one--however troublesome our relationship could sometimes be--rather than with a void was to me the more fulfilled life. I had to know what happened, who she was, where she was. And I cherish the years of good feelings and good times we shared, the simple satisfaction of being mother and daughter, at the Montauk lighthouse, at a local bar over a beer, on top of the Empire State Building, shopping for a new outfit for her. She said wonderful things to me that I hold dear. She was, first and last, my daughter. She committed suicide in 2007.

Some birth mothers, and adopted people, seem to be able to shut out the questions, and maybe they are happier living their lives that way; but I could not, and did not, and was never, not for a single moment, sorry. I would have been sorry had I never searched.
--lorraine
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I am going to be taking a hiatus from posting as often. Life is taking me elsewhere right now, and I need to go there. I will try to post once a week. And I may put up short notices about stuff in the news on the sidebar. Jane will continue writing too. This is a link for my memoir, Birthmark, about relinquishing--before I felt I had a right to search:

What’s Wrong with Birthmother Events on Mother’s Day? Just about EVERYTHING

The famous holiday from hell as far as birth mothers are concerned is upon us: Mother’s Day. Reminders are as common as grass: on television and in the newspaper, on the computer. AOL has a click-on icon that takes you to a virtual catalogue of goodies to buy: eye shadow (I am not kidding) to leather briefcases and of course, the ubiquitous flowers.

For those of us who want a relationship with the children we lost to adoption, reminders of the flowers and cards we will not get on Sunday are fresh knives to the heart. Especially after I found my birth daughter, Jane, and she did not remember me in any way—no card, no phone call, drop dead, why don’t ya—it was a depressing day. Remember, over the years we had spent a great deal of time together; she had lived with us for months at a time. Yet Mother's Day would come and go without any acknowledgment. Did it feel like further punishment? You bet it did. The card I got from my stepson simply reminded me of a daughter who had decided to forget. I would counter my gloom by repeating yogic thoughts: Mother’s Day is only one day. Tomorrow is another day, a not Mother’s Day.

And: We make ourselves prisoners of our feelings, when they are neither good or bad, they just are.

I only succeeded up to a point. I was sure that Mother’s Day was being celebrated with bells and whistles and flowers and dinner with Jane’s adoptive mother back in Wisconsin. I never asked. I did not harbor any resentment over that, naturally, but could not Jane have at least sent a card or made a last-minute phone call? She had to be aware it was Mother's Day. Yet I kept my feelings to myself. I did not call her. I called my own mother instead; some years I brought my mother to New York from Michigan at that time and my husband and I were able to take her to a fancy lunch. Other years I sent flowers. Like many birth mothers, I did not have other children, and so had no one to distract me from Jane's ignoring me on this day.

Finally, after years—hell, decades—of being forgotten by my daughter on this day, I took a leap of courage and told Jane during one of our close periods that her ignoring Mother’s Day really hurt my feelings. That a mere phone call, or a card, some acknowledgment that I existed, that I was also her mother, would have turned the day completely around for this birth/first mother.

Jane’s life was not without travail, and she was on her own by this time. Now she remembered to call or send a card for Mother's Day as often as she forgot. But somehow the mere act of having told her how I felt made it easier on my mind when I did not hear from her. The cards I prize the most are the funny ones that obliquely refer to our fractured relationship. The best has a humorous photograph of a mother and daughter who look amazingly alike and which thanks me for “keeping her head on straight.” Once she was married, she always remembered, except for the year or two when she had decided I was not going to be in her life anymore. Yes, that continued to happen, right up until the end.

The one card about which I am not enthusiastic was the $3 pink Hallmark special: For My BirthMother it says on the outside. I wanted to ask, but did not, had she sent her other mother a card that said: For My Adoptive Mother? By the time she sent that, I'd known her for so many years and through so many trials and tribulations. Naturally I kept my little internal carping to myself and simply thanked her for remembering.

Not surprisingly, I am not a fan of any “birth mother celebrations,” even if they were the brainchild of first/birth mothers themselves, as apparently some of them are. The Saturday before Mother’s Day is designated as “Birthmother’s Day.” Special gatherings of first mothers are planned in several states, I read. To all this I say, gag me with a spoon. I can not think of anything more depressing that getting together with other first mothers on the day calibrated to remind us of possibly the worst day in our lives…unless we were going to the theater, a super lunch, a day at the spa, or just getting together because we are friends.

This is the first year in several that I did not get numerous reminders to attend a Spence-Chapin gala in Manhattan, which I looked upon as a mawkish reminder of all that had been lost. I know a hasty email I sent offended at least one of the birth mothers involved in the planning. But I can not see how such a “celebration” for women who have relinquished their children--sponsored by an adoption agency--is anything more than a pat on the head for good service done, as in: You gave us product for our business. Thank you. Hey, have lunch on us, light a candle together, we share your pain.

Maybe smarter heads at Spence Chapin decided this year that such a pity party was not a great idea. I would have liked it if it had turned into a raid upon their records! So while I know there are several events planned in several states for Birthmother’s Day, I will refrain from taking part. There are enough reminders everywhere that doing anything extra to mark the day becomes an exercise in self-flagellation.

Of course, now it is different for me. Both my mother and my daughter are deceased and I will spend the day ignoring Mother’s Day. If it’s nice I’ll work in the garden, I always find that restorative. Maybe we’ll take in a movie—as long as it’s mindlessly escapist. I will probably not go to brunch in a restaurant that day, as they are always jammed. Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine with lunch, wherever that is. Maybe I’ll stimulate the economy and buy something nice for myself .

And the day after Mother's Day will be Monday. Another day. I won't have to think about this for another year. --lorraine

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For another take on “Birth Mother” celebrations, see

http://www.exiledmothers.com/speaking_out/birthmothers_day1.html

And

http://adoption.about.com/od/celebrationinspiration/a/honormothers.htm?nl=1