A Letter to Mom and Dad

Welcome back to Blogville friends. Thank you for always coming back and listening to what I have to say. Even I am surprised by my thoughts sometimes. This blog is a good example. Maybe it is because Mother’s Day just passed and with Father’s Day looming I keep thinking about mom and dad and how I wish I could pick up the phone and say all of my unsaid words. But, sadly, it is too late for that. So I have decided to write them a posthumous letter instead while I sip on my hibiscus tea. I thought I might share it with you. (Trigger warning- emotional, grief)

Dear Mom and Dad,

The other day I picked up the phone to call my friend and was almost finished dialling your old phone number before I realized what I was doing. I feel that maybe, subconsciously, there were things I left unsaid before each of you left this life. I wonder if this many years needed to pass after losing each of you before I could say these things out loud. I’m sorry I could not say them sooner, or say them to both of you but here they are with all my heart.

Mom and dad, I thank you for being there, for saying yes when the worker called to ask you if you would be interested in adopting me, a nine month old baby girl. So the story goes, you called dad at work to share the news and make sure he was in agreement before you called the worker back to say ‘YES!’. I know that you then called all your friends, most of them also adoptive parents, to tell them the good news. I know you felt especially fortunate to be offered a baby as young as I was because you used to tell me how only people who could afford to adopt privately got the newborns. I’m sorry I was so old when I moved in with you mom but other than often hearing the story about private adoptions and newborns, I know you were excited to begin parenting a fairly young baby. I also know that if you knew how it made me feel, you would have stopped telling the “private newborn” story in front of me and my brother who was 2 1/2 years old when you adopted him. How could you have known how it felt to have been reminded that you were a consolation prize? Dad, when I look at the film of the day I arrived, I can see that you thought I was pretty small, young, and breakable judging by the fear on your face when mom handed me to you for the first time (even though you were trying to look natural and relaxed). Despite my being adopted, you and I had the same sticking-out ears, which was obvious in the film clip where you first held me. Our similar ears, blue eyes and our tall, thin builds made us a great accidental match as father and daughter. If the whole town hadn’t known I was adopted, I bet we could have fooled people. Mom and dad, I thank you for the excitement and pride you both demonstrated on the day I arrived (and I really thank the family friend who brought a film camera that day). To me, my arrival day film is like a birth video without all the yelling, blood, and people passing out!

Mom, I know you had to advocate with your family doctor and with the hospital to arrange for my umbilical hernia surgery, a condition of my placement with you. After meeting my foster mother a while back I learned that whole thing was kind of a race. She, who wanted to keep me as long as possible was trying to make arrangements in her community for the surgery and my recovery as soon as she could, while in some weird kind of custody race, you were trying to make those same arrangements in your community happen sooner. You won! I could hear the hurt in your voice mom when you would tell the tale of how I had to be hospitalized for that surgery almost immediately after arriving into the family. It hurt you deeply when I was more easily comforted by the nursing staff than by you. I wish you had known mom that I had been cared for by nurses (likely in uniform in those days) for many weeks from my birth until my agency sent a worker to collect me. So, naturally, nurses would have been more comforting to a nine month old baby than you, sadly a virtual stranger to me at that point, would have been. I had already lived with a few strangers (multiple foster home placements) in my short lifetime, so I’m pretty sure I was somehow just trying to protect myself. I’m sorry mom, that must have been so hard for you, thank you for continuing to visit with me despite my apparent rejection of you while in hospital. If you were still here , I know you would simply say, “Oh, that’s just what mothers do Lynn.” 

I thank you and dad for saying yes despite having minimal information about me and virtually no information about my biological family members. In fact, it turns out there was even huge misinformation, such as being told I had an older birth brother who had been kept by the family and that my birth mother had been made to give me up because her parents did not want to ‘encourage that behaviour’. As it turned out, that baby boy was actually a baby girl who had also been placed for adoption. When I found this out in my twenties you were pretty ticked off that you had been given the wrong information. You felt complicit in the lies, though you were as innocent a victim of misinformation as I was. The adoption process in those days was incredibly poor, but you and dad made it work. The trauma I experienced was caused by my abandonment at birth, not only by my birth parents but by my entire child protection agency, and finally, by suddenly being moved (again) from a foster family that actually cared for me. These traumas were not caused by you and dad, but you were left to manage my trauma behaviours without any real support. Thank you for doing your best to mitigate that early trauma. 

Thank you for maintaining friendships with other adoptive families in our community (long before support groups became a thing) so that I didn’t feel like a weirdo. All of us children were aware that we had been adopted and I strongly believe there was some comfort in knowing that adoption was a ‘thing’, that it wasn’t simply because of something I had done to make my birth parents not want to keep me and parent me. I remember watching an old show in those days filmed in Toronto called “Family Finder” where children available for adoption were showcased in the hopes of finding them adoptive families. I also recall seeing a newspaper column called “Today’s Child” with the same goal of matching children with adopting families. I would sometimes wonder if any of my adopted friends had been ‘found’ that way. I remember my brother treating Family Finder’ a bit like a shopping channel, searching for that baby brother he always wanted (but never got). I also remember when I was a bit older wondering if I would have been dressed up and made to go on tv or to a photo shoot if you hadn’t said yes to the adoption worker when she called, although I’m not sure if that television show or the newspaper column existed when I was made available for adoption. Apparently the TV show was sponsored by Mattel and all the children profiled got some pretty cool toys for their starring roles as available orphans. Hmmm, a new Barbie or you two as my parents? I think I got the better ‘prize.”

Mom, you were always gentle and as truthful as you thought was right when I would ask questions about my story, or my adopted friends’ stories. Dad, I think you were terrified of saying the wrong thing, so you would get that ‘deer in the headlights’ look and say, “Go ask your mother.” Mom, you were always kind about my birth mother and her ‘situation’, although it sometimes hurt when you would say her loss was your gain. I know you meant well, but her loss was my loss too. In fact all of us adopted children who played together had trauma and loss issues that impacted on many of us in different ways as time went on. I do thank you for building relationships with other families who became like my extended family. Oh and growing up as an adoptee at least I knew a worker had delivered me to you, not some weird Stork!

Fast forward to when I sought out that birth brother, who turned out to be a birth sister! I will never forget the support I felt from you in seeking a relationship with that older, biological sibling. Not that at age 32 I needed your consent, but as your daughter I felt that I needed your blessing. You gave it freely. When you met my birth sister mom, you were warm, accepting, and curious. You even told her that if you and dad had known about her, you would have adopted her too, and I knew you meant it. Afterwards, you would always ask about her, and how she was doing. I know that must have been hard for you and dad, and I thank you for understanding my need to find her and for accepting her into our lives. 

When I found and met my birth father, I never told you dad. I cannot explain why really, except that it felt like somehow I was betraying you. There was a little daddy’s girl in me that did not want to ever be the cause of any hurt in your eyes. I think people accept that adopted children might one day want to find their birth mother to understand why they were given up, but the birth father is somehow seen simply as a sperm donor left out of the tough decision making. This is not completely true, many birth fathers did not know they have a biological child in the world and are happy when they are ‘found’. When I told you mom, that our birth mother was not interested in meeting my birth sister and I, you simply said, “I’m sorry to hear that, but Lynn, it’s her loss if she doesn’t want to meet you and your sister.” That’s not completely true, it was actually a loss for all three of us, but I understood what you were saying. Thank you mom, for making that situation about her, not me, and for making me feel that I was worth meeting. 

Mom, when I was in my 60s and you in your 90s I was able to locate and meet my last foster mother, the one who fought hard to keep me for the surgery. When I told you about meeting her and what a nice person she is you heard me out, looked me in the eye, and then said simply, “Did you thank her for me?” 

I miss you Mom and Dad
Love, Lynn

Once again, thank you for jointing me in Blogville. I always appreciate your comments on my thoughts whether here, or more privately, by email [email protected] I’ll ‘see’ you next time.