June 19th

Welcome back to Blogville my friends, I’m so glad you decided to visit today. Please join me in a cup of berry blast tea while I briefly reflect on what tomorrow means to me. So get comfy, put your feet up, and travel this journey with me.
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I’m pretty sure I’ve talked with you before about June 19th. I guess because June 19th is tomorrow (as I write this blog) I am just reliving birthday dates, birthday meanings, birthday celebrations, and birthday grief. I am an adult adopted person and the anniversary of my birth and relinquishment is very painful for me. It is not painful for all adopted people but you might want to consider their feelings around their date of birth. 
Yvonne Marie was unwanted and born on September 22, 1958. 
Lynn Dianne was placed on adoption probation as a much wanted child on June 19, 1959. 
Which date would you celebrate?

Pretty much everywhere I have ever worked celebrates their employees’ birthdays. Sometimes it is a ‘surprise’ cake, though if the employer gets a cake for every employee’s birthday, every year, it is hardly a surprise right? Sometimes colleagues decorate the birthday person’s office, cubicle, or other workstation. Again, no surprise! Sometimes employers announce staff members’ birthdays via announcements in newsletters, staff bulletin boards, emails, and/or other social media platforms. I have even heard of employers that give staff the day off for their birthday!

Why? Why do employers have to announce to other staff members when your birthday is? Oh wait, of course, it is to celebrate the day you were born. I have learned that if one objects to having their birthday acknowledged, they are seen as party-poopers, or even that they are ashamed of their age. It begs the question, if one was married and then divorced, do people continue to celebrate their anniversary each year? No! The relationship no longer exists, so the wedding date is irrelevant now. If the person remarries, it is commonly accepted that this new date becomes their anniversary date without question or debate! 

It is not about my age, I am not now, and never have been ashamed of my age. I am, however, ashamed of having been born. My birth caused a whole bunch of heartache, embarrassment, and humiliation. My impending birth was so awful that my birth mother had to leave her community to hide and give birth to me in secret, like an elopement. My birth date may have brought life to me, but it brought shame to my birth mother and her family, so it simply marks the annulment of our mother/child relationship. Put that on your bulletin board!

My birth was such a shame to my birth mother and her family that when given the chance to meet me as an adult, my birth mother said no. She consulted her husband who said ‘no way’, reminding her that she had to hold to her promise of living in silence about letting me go. She consulted one of her brothers who also advised that she should just let the opportunity to meet her adult child go, just like she had let the infant go. Can you just see a Hallmark Card for adopted people’s birthdays? The outside reading, “Happy Unhappy Reminder of the Day You Were Born!”, with the inside reading, “Another year older but still unwanted/unwelcome!”

How then, does one begin to celebrate that date? How does one plaster that fake smile on while cutting the ‘surprise’ birthday cake to share with her colleagues? How does one listen to singing of the traditional birthday song a stark, off-key reminder that no one had been ‘happy’ on my birth day. The familiar song taunting me; knowing that I have never met anyone who could tell me about the day I was born, and worse, knowing that I never will.

Why then, must I share this very emotional and confidential information with my employer, or with my colleagues, in an effort to stay emotionally safe on the anniversary of the date my untimely and unwanted arrival? September 22, 1958 was the day Yvonne Marie was born, and left behind in a cot, therefore enabling my birth mother to continue on with her life uninterrupted by my untimely birth. Hardly warranting a celebration. No one’s business but mine.

Soooooo . . I had an idea. I researched and found out that the date I arrived at my parents’ home was June 19th, 1959. THAT is the date that Lynn Dianne was born. So, that date became my ‘work birthday’. If people at work asked when my birthday was I would happily say, June 19th! Silently I was daring any Human Resource person to breach confidentiality and correct me. My family, the government, Human Resources, and some close friends knew my true date of birth, a date the one person who should have celebrated it with me likely grieved it, or worse, had forgotten it; the unwanted baby girl’s DOB blocked out and covered up like my existence on this earth. To me September 22nd is a date for mourning, not celebrating. 

So if you want to celebrate me, send good wishes to me tomorrow, June 19th. That is the anniversary of the date I truly became someone’s loved, cherished, and wanted daughter through the adoption process, the day my parents got their precious baby girl! Happy Birthday to me! I think I’ll light a candle!
​ Thanks for reading! 

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