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.

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.

Christmas Thoughts for Those Separated by Adoption

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 child who is absent from your life. You wonder if he/she ever thinks of you at this time of the year. Question not. He is.

If you are adopted, you are wondering if your other parents, especially your natural mother, are out there thinking about you. Question not. She does.

Christmas music seems designed to pierce through whatever shell you have surrounded yourself with and reach down to your very core and remind you: She is gone, she is six or sixteen or thirty-six, who is she today?--oh my god, that girl/teenager/young mother looks like me, could she be her? I used to barely be able to get through Christmas Mass without crying real tears, not just a few watery eyes. The high notes of The First Noel and Silent Night cut right to the heart of my heart. And so many reminders accost us daily: shopping at the mall and seeing people who are the age of your child, or catching a glimpse of a mother and daughter--you note how much they look and act alike, you can not help it--out together for the day, seeing something you wish you could give your daughter, if only you knew where she was.

For those who have been reunited with their lost children, but the initial joy at reconnection has gone aground in the murky waters past reunion, I can only say that I know how deeply disappointing and hurtful that is, and that I understand your fresh sorrow at this disjuncture. I had my time in that hellhole too. But in time and with belief in the innate yearning of blood seeking blood, the breach was bridged, once again, and we moved on. This is not to say time and persistence healed all wounds, for they did not, but they made it possible for my daughter and I to move on, and together. To those of you still in that perilous place of fractured reunion, especially to my good friends who are there, my thoughts are with you, and I hope you too find the peace and reconciliation my daughter and I reached.

Our path is not easy. The way is fraught with brambles and thorns. Memory is relentless and usually unforgiving. I am not a religious person, but it is so easy to ask, Why Me? Or Why Me, Lord? I do not have the answers. But I do know we were not meant to have our hell on earth to provide someone else's joy, to complete someone else's family, yet it does seem that that is the good--someone else's gain--that often springs from the sorrow and grief of losing our children. If I can find meaning in my own life, it is to use my experiences and with the voice of authority for having been there, having done that, given up a child, to work for change in adoption. If I can find meaning in my life, it is to free adoptees and birth/first mothers from the chains of the past that tie us on the rack of secrecy and anonymity. It is is to shine a little light on the injustice that was done to us all when we gave up our children for what we hoped would be a better life than we could provide. It is to try and prevent others from following our trail of tears. It is to work for a better tomorrow.

I will go to Mass on Christmas morning and ruminate about my daughter. I will not pray for her soul because I believe, if there is life after death, that she is in a good place. With her epilepsy, and being given up by me, her mother, she suffered a great deal in her too-short life. I will, I am sure, be once again overcome with emotion when the chorus sings Silent Night. And then, I will share the day with family and friends and good food and fellowship. And I will know that no matter how much I miss her at this time of year, Christmas is only a season, Christmas is only a day.

Tomorrow Christmas will be over, and life will go on.--lorraine
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Merry Christmas everyone, Jane and I will be taking a short break here.