Let it go

Last night I attended Roo's last dance recital. Dance is boring, she says, so she's going to try something new in the fall. She danced pretty well for a four-year-old. It looked to me like she knew the choreography better than any of the other little duck-costumed preschoolers on the stage. Her face really sold it for me, too. This girl was serious about her duck dance. M and I sat next to each other and we both took video of Roo dancing. It was one of those moments that could have been photographed for a PSA about open adoption.

After the recital M found Roo among the lines of tiny dancers filing out of the auditorium, and my heart felt full to burst. To someone who doesn't understand the beauty possible in adoption this will sound weird or even awful, but it makes me so, so happy that M is Roo's mom. They belong with each other. I see the two of them together and I think, that's what I want, if I ever have the chance to be a mother again.

I don't feel a smidge of sadness about the almost-five-year-old who danced so enthusiastically in a sparkly duck costume last night. She's got as good a life as any little girl could ever hope to have. She's pure sunshine - goodness and sweetness in human form. She makes me happy. It's impossible for me to feel any pain where she's concerned. In that sense, as far as placing a child for adoption goes, I am way beyond “over it.”

But this afternoon I got a reminder that there are some things I might never get over. It's a reminder I've gotten several times before but I keep managing to push it out of my mind. And, just like so many of life's disappointments, this one is because of laundry.

I was a mother for nine weeks before I placed Roo for adoption. When you've got a baby, you've usually got this entire collection of things for the small human in your care. It's quite amazing how many things accumulate for such a tiny person. I had a crib and a car seat and a stroller and a Pack and Play and crib bedding and blankets and burp cloths and dozens of teensy little outfits and socks. There were pacifiers and miniature fingernail clippers and bottles and stacks and stacks of other things that modern society says are required for the well-being of a ten-pound person. I spent every penny I had on accouterments for my baby. And I was happy to do it. I loved every last accessory.

Then one day I didn't have a baby anymore.

But I still had all this stuff. Scads of it. Boxes and boxes worth of baby things. Most of them I was able to put aside without an overabundance of pain. Clothes were a different story. The last load of little laundry I did, the one after placement, just about killed me. I folded up clean Onesies and sleepers and knew that I wasn't going to put them on my baby ever again. I didn't have a baby to put them on.

Eventually all of Roo's things were packed into Rubbermaid storage boxes, which were labeled and tucked away into a back corner of the garage. The crib was taken apart and bubble-wrapped and nestled with the mattress on top of the boxes. The car seat and stroller were mummified in plastic and hidden with the rest of the proof that I used to be somebody's mother.

My mother consoled me with the idea that in a few years I would likely be unwrapping and unboxing everything with my husband, getting things ready for the child we were expecting together. I clung desperately to the idea of this storage being a temporary thing. I thought, I will be a mother again before this pink-patterned car seat expires.

But I wasn't. Roo turned two and her baby things remained untouched. I considered selling them but I panicked when I tried. I wasn't ready to let them go. If I ever thought of the boxes after that I decided to worry about selling their contents when Roo was three. I would be ready then. But I didn't think about the boxes very often. I wasn't at my mom's house very often and I certainly wasn't spending time in her garage. Roo's third birthday came and went and her baby things never came to my mind.

I found some way to block from my mind the existence of those boxes and that shrink-wrapped furniture. I would see baby clothes at Target and have vague memories of how, in my early twenties, I used to collect little outfits here and there for some future child but my mind never jumped from that collection to the storage boxes. I managed to forget about the sad reminders of my interrupted maternity until last month.

My sister-in-law is pregnant and due in August. This pregnancy is something of a miracle and, with more than four years having passed without a new niece or nephew, I am almost desperately happy at the thought of holding a Barber baby again. My sweet nephew Elliot died two years ago, before he was born, so every day Becky is pregnant with this little girl is an answer to prayer.

My brother and his family were in town for Easter. They're getting ready to move to Texas this summer and somehow or other it came up that they were going to have to buy a new crib and mattress for Baby Girl. My mouth knew what to say before my brain did.

“I've got a crib and mattress in the garage. It's yours if you want it.”

They said that they did, and I loved the thought of their miracle baby sleeping in Roo's old crib. I felt ready to let those things go. I was proud of myself. I was finally ready! They reassured me that I could have both items back when I needed them but I said I didn't think that day would come and they were welcome to keep what I gave them. And then the conversation moved on, and again I forgot about the things in my mom's garage.

Today my sister-in-law sent me a text message asking if my offer of the crib and mattress was still good. I said that it was. She asked if I still had the bedding and I said I had everything. When I used the word “everything” I was thinking of bumpers and blankets and I was ready to part with it all but then Becky asked what I meant by “everything” and I suddenly remembered the box of baby Roo's Onesies and sleepers and I lost it. I went full-on Kim Kardashian with my ugly crying.

I want my sister-in-law to have the crib and mattress. I want her to take the box of bedding. I'm ready for that. But those tiny clothes … will I ever be ready to let them go? Roo starts school in the fall. How am I still haunted by her gingerbread jammies? How is it that five years later the thought of her pink polka-dot Onesie reduces me to tears?

I have a box full of baby clothes that I'm not using, that I may never use. I want to let it go. I want to want Becky to take them. I don't want tiny striped socks to have this kind of hold on me. What's it going to take for me to be ready? How long will it be before the ghost of the baby who was mine stops casting a shadow over a box of clean laundry?

I don't know. I know plenty of birth mothers, including several who parented before placing, but none who placed before I did. I don't have anyone to look to as an example of what trajectory my grief hoarding might follow.

I've passed the point where I'm hanging on to little laundry for some future baby. I wasted a lot of time with motherhood as my only life's goal. It would be fine if I were married or expected to marry but I have to think differently as a single woman in my stage of life. I have to plan for a future where I'm the only one who's going to take care of me because there are no guarantees. I know that I wouldn't marry me right now. I've got too much baggage and I probably always will. I expect to unpack it on my own.

The memory of the newborn I placed is strong enough to keep that box of baby clothes in my mom's garage. I just wish that the thought of the five-year-old that baby became was strong enough for me to let the box go. I'll get there someday. Someday I will be able to open that box, to save a pair of jammies or two as a reminder, and let the rest of it go.

Maybe that day will be sooner than I think. The crib and mattress will be loaded into a Texas-bound van in July. And a few days before that, Becky and I will open the boxes that I haven't touched in five years. We'll pick out sheets and blankets for her tiny miracle. Becky is one of the strongest women I know. Maybe her strength will make me brave and we'll open the box that hurts me the most.

I've cried alone over these things for so long. Maybe crying over them with someone else will give me the courage I need to finally let them go.

Four Years, and Five Years

I neglected to celebrate my blog's birthday at the end of August. I did have cake, but I didn't blog. I never blog anymore, you guys. I'm sorry.

But one day I won't neglect to commemorate is today, the 9th of September. This is going to be as unfocused as all get out, but I have things to say. Today marks four years since I placed Roo for adoption. It also marks five years since my dad died. I remember thinking, back in 2009, that it was a good idea to place Roo on the anniversary of my dad's death, because that way I would have one day a year to feel sad and I could be happy the rest of the time.

Worst idea EVER.

I find myself experiencing a sort of mutant weather system of feelings this time of year because I'm thinking of two different life experiences and processing the emotions that each of them brought, and sometimes the hot and cold fronts collide and there are violent storms. Last Monday I felt every feeling I have ever had all at once. I ended up slumped on the floor in my closet, sobbing to the point of hyperventilation. I had to go shoe shopping to make it okay.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. When I grieve placement, it's nothing to do with the real Roo, the world's awesomest four-year-old. My grief is for my baby, my tiny newborn. I miss being a mother, and I miss being her mother in particular. The fact that I have a milestone birthday coming up and that I am still very, very single only compounds that pain. I want children. I wanted Roo. I want more just like her. Letting her go was the hardest thing I have ever done. Losing my dad was awful, but placement in the moment was a million times worse.

But it's okay now. It is absolutely okay. 

I was going back through my archive and reading what I wrote on previous September 9ths. I had this to say in 2010:

“A year later, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Yes, it hurt. It hurt for a while. But time has dulled the pain, and continues to do so. Roo's happiness is worth every tear. If me being sad for a while is the price of her being happy forever, I'm glad to have paid it.”

I stand by the words of Past Jill. She was pretty insightful. I miss her sometimes. I haven't had a single insight lately. Well, that's not entirely true. But my last insight was inspired by a YouTube video; it wasn't much to brag about. (Also, the video was the one about what sound a fox makes.)

I miss being a mother when I stop to think about it. But every single day, I miss having a father. My dad was a pretty awesome guy. My mother is fond of saying that he was the most fascinating person she had ever met. She's not wrong. I had a great dad. He's been gone for five years and I still can't make it okay.

Tonight I went to the planetarium at Mesa Community College and watched the coolest video of the universe, as generated by computers, set to the music of Pink Floyd. It was absolutely amazing, and I wanted to cry because my father would have loved it. When I was a kid he would take me outside after dark, set up his telescope and teach me about the stars. He pointed out planets and constellations, and the occasional airplane, along with the thought that he liked airplanes because it was nice to be going somewhere.

He has been gone for five years and I still miss him so much it hurts. I have made so much progress with adoption in four years; the pain is hardly worth mentioning because it is so fleeting and faint. It's a good place to be in. I wish I could get there with my grief for my dad.

I have always liked the idea of space travel in theory but in practice it scares me. Too many things can go wrong, and there is precious little keeping you alive. When my family was in Washington, D.C. for my sister's wedding, we went to the National Air and Space museum and saw the tin cans they used to use to send astronauts into space. I could not believe how small they were, or how thin. A million things could have gone wrong and the men inside would have died pretty horrible deaths.

"I could never go up into space," I told my dad.

"Really?" he said. "I'd go in a second. I want off this planet. We're all trapped here, you know." (Only my father would feel trapped on a planet the size of ours.)

He's not trapped here anymore.

There are a lot of things I don't understand about the afterlife, but personally I like to believe that my dad has seen planets and stars and galaxies and that they are every bit as amazing as he used to imagine.

Today was a good day, it really and truly was. I am blessed to have a lot of people in my life who love me and who say nice things to me when I need a boost. I had an entirely adequate day at work (good as it gets with the government). I had the very best time at dinner with Roo and her family - they are my favorite people ever - and I felt so purely happy! And the planetarium was amazing, and I was there with friends. It was a lovely day, better than I expected and certainly better than I deserve.

There was just this moment when I got home a little before 10:00. I hadn't been home all day, and my apartment was dark and empty. I was reminded of the day my dad died, when my mom and I went home to a dark, empty house. I went to the kitchen (tonight, not 5 years ago) because I thought eating my feelings* might help, but mostly I wanted a cookie and there were no cookies, so I cried instead.

And then I went on with my night, and here I am. I have survived another September 9th, and I only cried once. My sister-in-law said on Facebook that instead of just being sad today I should use the day to celebrate the choice I made for Roo and the awesome person that my dad was. I like her idea much better than the crying that has been my tradition. Every September 9th that passes is a reminder that I am so much stronger than the things life throws at me. I'm not broken. I'm not bitter.

I'm better.






*Eating my feelings is number 148 on my list of faults. I don't recommend listing your faults. You will not be a happier person. You will, however, have a humorous anecdote to share when making small talk. So it's up to you.

Mother's Day, Take Five

This month I celebrated my fifth Mother's Day and my fourth Birth Mother's Day. I’ve written before about Mother’s Day. Every year. I did it in 2010, and in 2011, and again in 2012. (click for link)

I was going to repeat myself, because I do that a lot. I'm not one to stop talking just because I've run out of things to say. I had a Mother's Day post planned. But more than a week and seven drafts later, I've given up. I don't have anything else to say about Mother's Day.

I'm sure it won't always be that way. It is entirely possible that next year will warrant multiple blog posts about this particular greeting-card holiday. But this year, I think I'm good.

I got a video of Roo wishing me a happy Mother's Day, and it's pretty much the only thing I needed, even though I didn't know I needed it until I got it. Can you believe Roo will be four years old this summer? I swear she just barely learned to walk. Anyway, this video is the best Mother's Day gift I could have gotten, and I kind of didn't care about anything else that happened that weekend. My sister sent me a card, which was unexpected and thoughtful and lovely. And, to cap off my weekend, when I was on the way to Casa Grande with my mother, I saw the Wienermobile headed south on the 10.

The only thing that bothered me all weekend was a few hours after the Wienermobile (there aren't too many occasions to use that phrase, let me tell you). My mom and I had gone to Casa Grande to take my grandmother to lunch for Mother's Day. After we ate we talked for a while. When we said goodbye, my grandma wished my mom a happy Mother's Day but she didn't say anything to me. I was surprised at how much that bothered me.

My mom reckons my grandma didn't want to bring up what she might consider to be a painful subject. That makes sense, I guess. My grandma isn't the sort of person to talk about painful things. When my dad called to let her know his cancer was back and he was going to die soon, she said, "Well, these things happen," and then told him about a problem she was having with her satellite dish. My grandma will be 87 next month, and she's outlived her husband and 4 of her 6 children. She knows what it is to hurt. She just doesn't talk about it.

I don't know how to not talk about it. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's seven years of therapy taking root in my brain. I just don't know how to not express a feeling, even if I'm only talking to myself.

But then, Roo's not a sad feeling or a hurt. Roo is my happy place. I'm sure she has moments with her parents where she is absolutely rotten but the advantage of being her birth mom is that I don't have to see any of that. She always behaves herself around me (because kids save their worst behavior for their parents) so I can pretend she's a little angel all the time and refuse to believe otherwise.

Anyway. Where was I?

Mother's Day. Not a big deal this year. I have had too many other things on my mind. It's not that I love Roo any less, or that I feel less like a mother or birth mother than I did in years past. The fact remains that I spent 41 weeks growing a small human from scratch (just two ingredients!) and 36 hours of labor attempting to evict said small human, who then had to be surgically extracted (yes, there's a scar; no, you can't see it). That will always be part of me; having Roo helped make me the person I am today.

But I'm much more well-rounded than I was in years past. There are more things competing for attention in my brain. My feet still itch (not literally; see my previous post for clarification), and I'm trying to plan three different trips before my birthday, and I'm turning 30 this fall and not taking it particularly well, and the Summer reading program is about to start at work, and this stray cat in my neighborhood has decided it belongs to me, and I frequently have to open the patio door and yell, "Stop meowing! I'm not letting you in! You are not my cat!" and the last time this happened two police officers heard me and I was too far away to offer a proper explanation.

("You don't have normal problems, do you?" my mother often asks.)

It's nice to have reached a point in my life where being a birth mother doesn't define me. It used to define me; the first year after placement it was pretty much my whole self, and it took another year before I didn't feel disloyal for not wanting it to.

I'm proud of myself for taking a whole week to write about Mother's Day. I'm proud of myself that Mother's Day is such a non-issue for me, that it was a blip and not a breakdown. I've come a long way.

I've been blogging much less frequently than I used to, and last night when I was waiting to fall asleep I figured out why.

I started this blog for Roo - to tell her story, so she'd never have to wonder why she's where she is and so she'll never doubt my love for her. Over time it's become less about Roo and more about me, which parallels my life pretty neatly. I have different things to say now. But because so much of my readership found me because of adoption, I feel like there are things I should be saying and writing about.

The problem is that I want to write about those things less and less. I feel like I've said it all before. I'm not done blogging, not by a long shot, but I think that much less of what I write is going to be so narrowly focused on adoption. This is my blog. I ought to be able to write about whatever I want, and tie it to adoption as loosely as feels appropriate, if it feels appropriate at all.

If you're okay with that, stick with me. I've got a lot more to say.

Itchy Feet

This is going to be one of those personal posts that has very little to do with adoption. Except that it kind of has a lot to do with adoption, eventually. I promise.



Lately I've been restless.

I should be more specific. I tend to be restless physically as a general rule. I can't remember the last time I sat still. But lately I've been mentally restless as well, and it's getting worse.

I'm convinced it's a genetic trait. My paternal great-grandmother (for whom Roo was named) was born to an unmarried mother, her biological father having been the sort of man who does not stay in one place for very long. She married a man, my great-grandfather, who was also the restless sort. They had two sons, and their second-born became my grandfather.

But years before that, he got itchy feet. (Not literally.) At the age of sixteen he fudged his birthday and joined the United States Marine Corps. They gave him a gun and a knife, and then they shipped him off to the Pacific to fight in the second world war. When he got back, he married my grandmother. After a few years they moved. And again a few years later. And again a few years after that.

When my dad told people he moved around a lot as a kid they assumed his father was in the military, and he was. But my grandfather was in the Reserves after the war. The constant relocation was his own choice. He worked as a pipefitter and a foreman and he had a temper. Every couple of years he'd get sick of his boss, quit his job, and move the family to a new place. The wandering life seemed to suit him.

It did not suit my father. He wanted roots. Once my oldest brother started school, my parents were settled, and if my father occasionally felt restless like his father he hid it well with car trips or new ways of arranging the furniture. I spent the first 18 years of my life in the same small town ... and I hated it.

My father wanted roots; I wanted wings. I felt stifled; trapped. I was envious any time there was a new kid at school; I felt they'd seen more than I had, experienced more, been more free. My world was so small. I grew to resent it. I took any chance I could to shake things up. When we had a family trip planned, I would pack my suitcase weeks in advance (and end up unpacking one day at a time because I had nothing to wear). I loved moving furniture around, painting walls, planting flowers. Anything to shake up the monotony of my tiny world. Every couple of years I had to do something, anything, to make a change.

I never outgrew it. At college, I was the girl who would say yes to any trip, anywhere (even an ill-planned trip in an aging truck to the top of a mountain, in the snow, at 2am, to help my friend Connie look for her camera. None of us brought a flashlight, and I was wearing flip-flops. Sorry, Mom). I was desperate for new experiences, new people, new scenery.

Since the age of 14, I haven't done any one thing for more than two years. I had one job from 14 to 16 and another from 16 to 18. Then college for roughly two years, another job for two years, 16 months of beauty school, a salon job for about two years. Then two years of unemployment, during which I grew a human being in my free time. Then my library job - one position for a year, and 18 months in my current position.

And I am getting restless. I don't know how to have the same job for so long without getting itchy feet. I keep shuffling pictures around at my desk, trying to make things look new. But I'm starting to feel trapped again. It hit me a few months ago. I was refilling my water bottle and my brain was idling and I suddenly couldn't remember what day of the week it was. This happens regularly, but that day I realized that it happens regularly. That there is precious little to distinguish one day from the next. That the past year of my life has flown by as if it had hitched a ride on a cannonball. I had this horrifying feeling that the next two, five, ten years of my life could easily be the same kind of a blur.

I managed to shake the feeling for a few months but it's back in full force. My twenties got away from me and if I keep on keepin' on, my thirties will be an endless cycle of damnation - work-sleep-work-sleep-work-sleep. No progress, no change. There is no opportunity for advancement at my library, and the county has not given pay raises in over five years. I have reached a dead end. I'm not unhappy with my life, but I feel like there has to be more out there for me and I find myself getting more and more desperate to find it.

So a few weeks ago I reminded myself that I am not a tree. America is a big country - the land of opportunity. I have options. I'm not stuck. I can go anywhere I want. I started looking for library jobs in other cities (thank you, Houston, for letting me know how grossly underpaid I am). I imagined myself in Illinois, in North Carolina, in Texas, in Virginia. My itchy feet danced at the thought of a fresh start, a new city, something different to get tired of in two years.*

I would be alone in a strange city, and that made me a little nervous. But, I asked myself, isn't it worth the risk? What do I have to lose? What is there for me in Arizona?

And right away I knew the answer. Roo. Roo is here in Arizona. She is my precious, amazing, wonderful little anchor to the Grand Canyon state. Roo is here. How can I go anywhere else?

I am so spoiled to live so close to her - in the same city, maybe a dozen miles away. When I want a visit, it's a matter of weeks and very little planning (on my part, anyway). I've been able to go to her dance recitals and play with her at the park and have breakfast with her at a restaurant. I could do none of those things if I lived in Houston, for example. Visits would have to be carefully orchestrated, and they would be expensive for me. I'm afraid I'd feel I was missing out on the little things - things I'm invited to now because I'm close but that might slip past if I lived a thousand miles away because it would be so difficult for me to go.

Roo is getting older (she will be four this summer. Four!). The older she gets, the more important it is to have a good relationship with her and her parents. I don't ever want her to feel abandoned by me. I want her to be able to see me when she wants to. To get to know me if she wants to. I don't want to be some distant figure, someone talked about but not to.

The simple thing to do would be to find something new here in the valley. A new apartment, a new job. But ... I can't explain it. Arizona almost feels too small. Yes, all 113,990 square miles** of it. I have lived in Arizona for thirty years. I know it too well. It's too familiar. There's nothing new here for me, and my feet want to go somewhere new.

But how can I even think of going anywhere that Roo's not?

Yes, I know that I'm being stupid and that Roo probably wouldn't be bothered by my relocating. The truth is that I'm the one bothered by it. The thought of moving away from her scares the heck out of me. And yet the restlessness grows.

How can I make my feet agree with my heart? I wish I knew. I don't know if there's a compromise. I don't know which part of me is going to win.

But I do know that it's time to start rearranging the furniture. 





*If you're thinking the whole two-year-itch thing means I'd make a good military wife, you're probably right, and I've thought so too. But single Mormon military men aren't exactly thick on the ground in the Phoenix metro area. So if you know of any, do a girl a favor, won't you?

**Thank you, Wikipedia! Also, I know that people have these ideas about Arizona because of Sheriff Joe. So I would just like to remind you that we are also the state that brought you Grumpy Cat. You're welcome, America.

Comparing Losses

I'm feeling introspective today; please indulge me.

Once upon a time, I was a psychology major in college. I was young and full of hope in those days and I hadn't yet realized that a bachelor's degree in psychology isn't worth anything; that more advanced degrees are required for any sort of enviable job in the field of mental health. Anyway, during one of my courses the instructor discussed stress. For fun (she had an odd sense of humor) she had each of us take a stress inventory. It was a list of life events - both good and bad - that are stressful and each event had an assigned point value. If you had, in the past twelve months, been through a life event on the inventory, you gave yourself the appropriate number of points, and you added up your score at the end and the total was, presumably, supposed to give you a good idea of how stressed you were. 

Personally I felt that if you needed a psychological inventory to determine whether you were stressed, you probably weren't. But I mention this because a few years ago I think I broke the stress inventory. In the space of twelve months I experienced the death of a parent, an unplanned pregnancy, the dissolution of a romantic relationship, the birth of a child, and the placing of that child for adoption.

I've been asked by more than one person whether it was harder to place Roo than it was to lose my dad. Without context the question seems a bit insensitive but I'm not bothered by it. I can see where people might wonder, as these two events occurred exactly a year apart, and both caused a grief, and both have shaped me, and both have left me to live my life without someone I love dearly.

But I can't say with any certainty that one was harder than the other, because they were such different experiences. I'm not even going to say they're apples and oranges, because apples and oranges are both fruits. Let's call them apples and roast beef. At the time, each experience was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. The difference is which I struggle with, several years out.

I once thought that placement was harder. My dad's death was a single event, with a very clearly defined end point. He was dying, and then he died – a medical fact. The rest of us were left to arrange things, because my father was gone. I remember being amazed at how quickly he was gone. One second my father was in the room and the next he wasn't, even though his body hadn't moved. My father's heart stopped beating and he was gone, his body a foreign object.The room had changed, just like that.

Plenty happened for those of us left behind, but it was the end of the line for my dad and for our lives with him. It was an end.

Placement, on the other hand, was a beginning. It was the start of a whole life of not being Roo's mother, a life of things that I'd miss and wonder about and mourn. Every day she'd grown a bit more, changed a tiny bit. For nine weeks plus nine months I was an expert on all things Roo. I knew her better than anyone. Placement marked the end of my being the Roo Jeopardy champion. I knew less and less about her. P and M took my place as Roo experts.

At first each day without her felt like an injustice and I almost longed for the relative simplicity of mourning a death. It seemed so much easier to handle, its trajectory so much neater. I had decades of memories to cling to in mourning my father. I had sympathy. In this sense, and at this time, placement absolutely was harder.

I find now that I have changed my mind completely. I prefer not to have to compare the two experiences but if I must I'd say that my dad's death was the hardest and continues to be the hardest and probably always will bring out the lost little child in me.

I am not Roo's mother, but she's still alive and happy and healthy and growing, and I get to see her and know her and love her. I have read books to her and been to dance recitals and I woke up on Christmas morning to a phone call from her. Roo makes me happy. Thinking of her brings joy. She is, as a friend of mine remarked, an affront to frowns. Roo is still here, and I still get to see her and be a part of her life. Placement was so hard, but it got better. I got better. I still have the occasional bad day but by and large the hurt is gone.

It is a million times harder to miss my dad, because he is gone not just from me but from this earth. I can't phone him when I get stuck on my taxes, or ask him to fix something on my car, or tell him that I love him, and I can't get a hug from him – the kind of hug only a dad can give, the kind that makes you feel completely safe and loved and okay, even if just for a moment. I miss those hugs. 

 

I can't write about him without crying. I miss him terribly. I kept thinking it would get easier, but it hasn't and I don't know that it ever will. I don't know if I'll ever get over the utter injustice of my father's absence. 

When you don't see someone for a while, you develop a mental backlog of things to talk to them about. My brother, for instance, lives in Utah now, and I find myself making mental lists of things to tell him and show him and ask him about the next time I see him. When he was in town for Christmas I didn't shut up for a few hours because I had so much to say.

When the person you want to talk to is dead, that backlog never eases up. The unasked questions, the unspoken conversations keep piling up until they become overwhelming, an entity, sentient. I've lost count of how many times I have thought or said, “I wish I could ask/tell Dad ...” More than once I've caught myself saying, "Dad will love this!" And then I remember: would have, not will. He has been in the past tense for 4 ½ years.

If I want to know something about Roo, I ask her parents, or Roo herself when I see her. That option is pretty much always available to me. But my dad's thoughts and opinions and memories left this earth years ago and I can't get them back - any of them. Every now and then I'll realize I've lost something more of him – the exact color of his eyes, his laugh, which of his front teeth was chipped – and I mourn him all over again. I dread the day when I lose the bigger things. What will I do when I've forgotten the sound of his voice or the feel of his arms wrapped around me in a hug? The less of him I remember clearly, the more gone he seems. 

I chose adoption, and so much good has come from it. Lives have changed for the better. There is so much joy! I can see so clearly how it fit into God's plan for the happiness of a few of His children. There was and is a purpose to placing Roo for adoption, and it is beautiful, and it is good. I can see that. All of that makes the sporadic bad day much easier to bear. 

I'm still waiting for that kind of reassurance in the loss of my father. I'm still waiting to see how it's been good for me or my mother or anyone else on earth. If I was supposed to have learned something by watching my father die, I'm sorry to say that I missed it.There's very little to cling to on days when I miss my dad. There never will be. It's okay that I'm not Roo's mother. But it's never really going to be okay that my father is dead.

I think this is the difference between the losses we choose and the losses that are chosen for us. We spend our lives learning to make choices and accept the consequences of them. We learn to be okay with our choices, good and bad. We learn from then, we're shaped by them, we let them make us better. I can see the good in the loss that I chose in part because I know why I chose it. 

I can't see the good in being deprived of my father. I never would have chosen this loss. It is monstrously unfair, and more than four years later I still struggle with accepting the consequences of his death. Part of me thinks if I always will.

Change of Plans

It's Father's Day. If I were more thoughtful and a better planner I'd have something deep and meaningful to say about the importance of fathers; or something about birth fathers, and H in particular; or something about how my big brother has been a good substitute dad since my own father died.

But in thinking about Father's Day I've found my mind consumed with thoughts of my dad, who died almost four years ago. I've been missing him a lot lately, more than usual. In honor of him, the best dad in the world, I want to share something I wrote last year for a college class. I also used it as a speech in Toastmasters. Now I'm blogging it; I think my dad would be proud that I've found so many uses for this essay.

I typically write about pretty personal things, but this feels somehow more personal than usual, so please restrain any urges to critique my writing and know that it did earn me an A. This is a little long, but I think it's worth soldiering through.

When I was little, I decided that I wanted to grow up to become an astronaut. My parents were supportive, as all parents of six-year-olds are. My mother took me to the library for books on the stars and planets, and my father took me with a telescope outside on clear nights to help me find Mars. The city offered a summer kids’ program about space, and I attended with great enthusiasm, certain that the knowledge I gleaned that June and July would help me on my way to a successful career as an astronaut.

Then I discovered opera. I adored opera. I decided that my new aim in life was to headline at La Scala. I had a delicious mental image of myself wearing a horned helmet and ornate breastplate, hitting notes high enough to shatter glass. But my newfound enthusiasm came crashing down much like the chandeliers in my opera fantasy. I couldn’t be an opera singer if I was an astronaut. I turned to my parents for guidance. My mother told me, as she so often did, that I could do anything I set my mind to, and that there was no reason I couldn’t sing opera in space. My father was a bit more pragmatic.

“Well,” he said, “you might find it hard to do both. But the nice thing is that you don’t have to decide right now what you’re going to be when you’re older. You’re allowed to change your mind as many times as you want.”

“Did you ever change your mind?” I asked.

He replied that he had. It wasn’t until I was much older that I came to understand just how much his mind had changed over the years.

My father was the fifth child of a Marine Master Sergeant and a homemaker. The homemaker, my mild-mannered grandmother, has always been the kind to take life in stride and brush off awkwardness or insult with a few murmured words. Master Sergeant Barber was a horse of a different color. I’ve heard his behavior explained away with any number of diagnoses. One relative suspects Grandpa had bi-polar disorder. Another of them chalks it up to a dangerously short fuse, a gift from his Scots-Irish forefathers, ostensible pugilists. Yet another says it was his gypsy blood. But whatever the reason, every few years, my grandfather would lose his temper at work, quit his job, and move his family to a new city to start over.

This had no small impact on my dad and his brothers and sisters. While they became accustomed to frequent uprooting, they never took to it the way Grandpa did. My dad was still in Little League when he made a vow to himself that he would never, ever allow himself to turn out like his father. At this point the Barber children numbered six. The colloquialism these days is “menopause baby” but in 1965 my uncle David was simply called a surprise. My dad, who was nine, had absolutely no use for a baby brother.

“What was I supposed to do with him?” Dad said once. “I couldn’t throw a baseball to him and he couldn’t fire a pellet gun. He was useless.” Dad had no previous exposure to babies, and so his experience with David soured him on the prospect of parenthood. He decided then and there he would never have children. “I always hated kids,” he would frequently say of his younger self.

Kids were off the list, but marriage was still a possibility until his sister wed, also in 1965. Her marriage was hasty, precipitated by a surprise pregnancy (those seem to run in the family). My aunt Patty was still in college at the time, as was her new husband, and their first apartment together was, my father reported, “a hole.” The newlyweds simply couldn’t afford creature comforts. Dad added to his list of personal vows: he would never, ever be a poor, married college student.

He would, however, attend college. Bad vision killed his dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, so the military was out. In the fall of 1974 he packed up his baby blue Superbeetle and moved to Flagstaff to study computer science at Northern Arizona University. He drove home on the weekends to visit his girlfriend, but his plans for the future were firmly set in his mind – a college degree, a successful career in the burgeoning computer industry, and a solitary life of academic pursuits. But the longer he dated his girlfriend, the harder it got to leave her on Sunday nights.

“One night I was driving home,” he recalled more than once, “and I realized that it physically hurt to be away from her. I decided I had to marry her.” He dropped out of college after three semesters – he was not going to be a poor married college student - and got a job working for Salt River Project. My parents married in October of 1976. My oldest brother was born the following July, and my dad must have discovered that babies aren’t so bad after all, because I am the youngest of four.

I couldn’t have asked for a better father. Sometimes he worked long hours, and he frequently threatened to throw away the toys I left on the floor, but I never doubted the depth of his love for me and my siblings. He wasn’t perfect, of course. He worked hard and he expected the same of his children, even the one who is by nature a lazy girl (that would be me). He yelled at my brothers for fighting on a regular basis. I don’t remember the words he shouted, but I do remember overhearing a subsequent conversation between my parents. My father was frustrated.

“I never wanted to be like my dad – never. And dang it, I’m just like him. Just like him!” my dad told my mother. The older I got, the more I came to realize that precious little of my father’s life had turned out according to plan. Every few years he would talk of taking a few college courses so he could finish his degree, but the money was never there, or if it was, he lacked time. SRP paid the bills but we were never wealthy. My dad did keep one promise well. He moved his family exactly twice, and both times were before my oldest brother was in school. Mine was a very stable upbringing.

I think that’s why my father’s brain cancer diagnosis was such a shock. It was unstable. It didn’t fit in anyone’s plans. “Man plans, God laughs,” my father quoted when I complained. Still, it seemed terribly unfair. Why did this have to happen to my daddy?

His attitude was the exact opposite. “Why not me?” he said more than once. “I’m not so special that I can’t get cancer.” He didn’t seem to realize that to me, he was special. He was my daddy. But I suppose he was right. He wasn’t invincible. Still, he pulled through the two surgeries that followed better than his doctors had hoped. He seemed to respond well to radiation, and the chemotherapy pills he took each month kept the cancer at bay.

We planned a family trip to Disneyland for the following year. My father knew his prognosis, but he was determined to beat the odds. He also knew that he needed to keep working until he turned 55 in order for my mother to get the best benefits when he died. He went back to work as soon as he was able, and for a little while it felt like business as usual. The only sign that anything had happened to my dad was a pencil-thin white scar that ran along his hairline, vertically bisecting his left temple.

The day before his 52nd birthday, my father attempted to write a grocery list and failed, suddenly unable to properly write his letters. We took him to the hospital. The news was bad. A snip of tumor that had, in June, been the size of a shelled peanut, was now the size of a lime. My father was going to die. Soon.

“Well,” my father said with equal parts Zen and Midwestern stoicism, “we knew this was coming, and here it is. I’m going to die.” There was a catch in his voice as he said the word “die” and I wondered if it really hit him just then as he said the words out loud.

I was stunned and devastated. I’m sure I sputtered something about out forthcoming trip, about retirement, about grandchildren. I don’t remember my words from that day, just the feeling that the laws of physics had failed me, and that a black hole had managed to open up in that curtained-off half-room, sucking away light and joy and air. But I must have listed off a number of things that my father would never get to do, because of what he said to me next.

“It’s okay,” he said. It seemed strange for him to be consoling me. After all, I wasn’t the one with a terminal cancer diagnosis. But there was a strange sort of peace about him. Several times over the next few days he would say that he didn’t much care about his own mortality but he felt awful for those of us he was going to leave behind. At that moment, he told me it was okay.

“You know, it’s not like I’ve got a list of dreams that will go unfulfilled. Nothing’s really left on my bucket list. I married a great woman, I have four children and seven grandkids and they're all on the right track. I know where I’m going when I leave this earth. I’m not going to be able to re-trace the path of Lewis and Clark, but I don’t think your mother was looking forward to that one, anyway.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to die, he explained, but he didn’t have a say in the matter, and he felt like he was as ready as a person could ever be. He’d lived all the life he’d hoped for. To him, death was just another adventure, another change of plans in a life full of them. He died a month later with one last shuddering breath that left me gasping for my own.

In the time that has passed since then, I have thought plenty about my father’s words in the hospital that day. It seemed wholly implausible that he could die without a single regret, without any unaccomplished goals. How could that be possible for a man who had once had so many ambitions? It was illogical.

But the more I think about it, the more grateful I am for that last meaningful lesson my father taught me. It’s not our grandest accomplishments that define who we are, or that even bring us the greatest sense of achievement. It’s the things that seem little that mean the most. My father was the smartest man I knew. I think he could have cured cancer if he’d put his mind to it. Instead, he died of it. But he was content with the life he led, because he had a family he loved, who loved him, and of whom he was immensely proud. It was not the life he’d planned, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t just as fulfilling. He would have made a fine fighter pilot or computer engineer. But he left a much greater legacy by being a good husband and father.

The life I’m living at present is the complete opposite of what I planned so carefully in my younger years. Sometimes I get frustrated by that. So I try to remember what I learned from my father all those years ago. It’s never too late to change your plans, and sometimes the new plans we make – the unexpected changes - can lead to much greater things than we can ever imagine.

Adoption is Kind of Like an Isuzu Pickup

You know what I think is awesome? More and more, when I use the phrase "open adoption," people don't stare at me, uncomprehending. Openness is becoming less foreign, and that's great. But you know what familiarity breeds?

No, not contempt, but good guess. Familiarity breeds questions. I love questions. People don't learn if they don't ask. So, here's a question. Why is openness in adoption important?

It's probably pretty obvious on my end of things. I love Roo, and I can't begin to imagine the hurt if placement had been goodbye. Openness is good because I love her and I still get to see her - to watch her learn and grow and see how happy she is.

But I think that the biggest benefit of openness is the one that affects Roo and her parents as much as me - knowledge. We all know each other, know about each other. If questions arise, they can be answered. I love stories as much as I love questions. So, to illustrate the importance of openness, here's a story about a truck.

My dad used to drive a little white '92 Isuzu pickup truck. It wasn't the smoothest ride around, it had a manual transmission, and I don't think it got great gas mileage. But it was his truck, and he drove it every day.

Eight, maybe nine years ago (I've lost track), the Isuzu was stolen from where it was parked right next to a neighborhood watch sign (I guess "watch" doesn't mean they'll actually act). I read somewhere that most car theft takes place between 1 and 5 am. I believe it. The truck was still there when I went to bed at 1:30. When my dad woke up at 4:45 for work, it was gone.

He called the police to report it, and the dispatcher said, and I quote, “Oh, that's too bad.” I don't know if it's still this way but at that time car theft was a huge problem in Maricopa County, and I guess the police just didn't care that much anymore. They just sort of shrugged.

Anyway. The truck was never found. I kind of thought maybe it would turn up eventually near the border or something, especially once my parents replaced it, but it never did. I know rationally that the truck is long gone. I will never, ever see it again.

But even though I know this, I find myself looking for it. Not all the time, mind you. But any time I see a white pickup truck, I do a double take, and I check the make and model. I check for a back bumper (ours didn't have one), for the Isuzu logo in the front grill (my dad removed it). I know I won't see it, but I think I see it all the time. Because I don't know what happened to it, and I don't know where it is, and what if it's out there somewhere and I miss if because I'm not vigilant enough? What if I stopped looking, and the next day it passed me in the street on my way to work?

There is a gap in my knowledge of the Isuzu. That gap keeps me wondering.

My mother was adopted. There was a gap in her knowledge of her biological family. It kept her wondering. While my mom never felt a gaping void in her life where her birth mother would be, her attention was always piqued if someone said she resembled someone they knew. She had questions. Who was this person she looked like? How much did she look like them? She knew it was a long shot, but the gap in her knowledge - Who do I look like?* kept her wondering. There was no void, but there was a gray area. Because my mother didn't have concrete answers, a part of her was always looking for someone out there who might resemble her.

This is the benefit of openness. Roo will never have to be vigilant, on the lookout. She knows what I look like and who I am. If she wants to see people she resembles … well, I think she resembles her parents, oddly enough, but she'll know where to look for a biological resemblance if it ever becomes important to her. She won't have to wonder. She will know.

It goes both ways. I think that if I didn't have an open adoption, my attention would be drawn to every little toddler girl I saw. I'd be searching faces for something familiar – an eye shape, a little chin, H's nose. I would know that it was unlikely I'd run into the child I placed, but I would be unable to keep myself from looking just the same, the way that I look for my dad's stolen truck.

I've often wondered if my birth grandmother, Roberta, ever looked for my mother in a shopping mall or on a crowded street. If she ever stared a little too long at a woman the same age as the daughter she placed, wondering if that familiar eye shape was just a coincidence. Part of me hopes she didn't. I want to believe that placement benefited Roberta as much as it did my mom. I want to believe that she was able to move forward. But as a birth mother myself, I can easily picture her looking for the child she placed in the faces around her, even if unconsciously.

I think of my grandparents, too. They met Roberta once, when she handed them their new baby girl. Did they ever look for her in a crowd? Did they ever think they saw her selling perfume at Macy's or counting their money at the bank? Did they, too, look for my mother's nose on women they met the way that my mother did?

This is the blessing of openness. There is no searching, no wondering, no gaps. Roo will know her story from start to ... well, not finish, because it's not over, but from start to present. She knows me, her parents know me, and I know all of them. We are friends. If questions arise, they can be answered. None of us will have to search for each other. There are no gray areas. There is knowledge, and there is peace.




*My mother didn't feel "different" for being adopted, but her thing was always, "Who do I look like?" For this reason I find it deliciously ironic that not one of her four children resembles her (my brothers and I look like my dad, and my sister looks like my dad's paternal grandmother). This is also the reason that I think it's funny when couples who are hoping to adopt tailor their search to increase the odds that the child they adopt will look like them. Biology is a crapshoot! I look nothing like my mother and she gave birth to me.

Also, for the record, not looking like my mother hasn't damaged me, and until I was a teenager I didn't even look like my dad very much. So if you're operating under the theory that adopted children suffer because they don't look like their families, disabuse yourself of that notion. Plenty of biological children don't look like their families, either.

Open Adoption Roundtable #30

If you are a regular reader, you might be puzzled by the #30 in the title (I've never done 1-29), as well as the phrase "Open Adoption Roundtable."

Allow me to explain. No, wait, allow the creator of the Open Adoption Roundtable to explain, as follows: "The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community." (See *here* for more.)

While I've been on the e-mail list for ages now, I have never felt the urge to participate. I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure why I felt the urge to participate today, but I did, so here goes. Prompt #30 says, "Do you remember the first time you heard about open adoption?"

(Allow me to apologize in advance for how scattered my thoughts are, and for any typographical errors. It's just been one of those days.)

I'm not sure I remember exactly - I can guess. I don't even remember when adoption itself was introduced to me. As far back as I can remember, I knew that my mother was adopted, and that it was a good thing because it meant she was special - her parents picked her, and they loved her. Personally, I always got the impression she was their favorite, but that might just have been the way I saw it as a child.

So adoption, in my mind, was closed adoption. There was no contact with the biological family, no connection. Although my mother occasionally put her name on adoptee-rights mailing lists, her heart wasn't in it - she didn't feel a void in her life. She mentioned, when I asked, that she was mostly curious about what her birth mother looked like, and she (my mom) wished that her birth mother could see that she was happy, and that adoption had been the right choice.

I know that my grandparents wished they knew more about the young woman who was in their lives for a matter of minutes. I imagine that they had questions for her, both for their own peace of mind and that of the tiny baby they'd been entrusted with. But what they knew about her was little enough to fit into a text message. They learned to live with it.

I had more of a thirst. When I was a teenager, or maybe 20, I was able to do some digging and I found my mother's biological family. She had a half-brother 5 years her senior, and two younger half-sisters. Her birth mother had died a few years before, and had never told anyone that she once placed a baby for adoption. I remember wondering how a person could keep such a heavy secret for over forty years. But, I thought, that was adoption for you.

Fast-forward several years to my first meeting with a social worker. I was only a few weeks pregnant at the time and the cells dividing inside me didn't even seem real yet. The social worker, S, discussed what she called my "options" with me, and adoption was one of them. I tuned her out because I wasn't particularly interested in adoption. I vaguely remember the phrase "open adoption" being thrown around but it didn't mean much to me. S told me about a few birth mothers she had worked with who had placed very recently, and I think she said something about visits or pictures. This caught my attention, and it mystified me. Visits? Who on earth would do such a thing? In my mind, adoption meant a signature on a legal document and silence for at least 18 years. It meant unanswered questions. That's just the way things were - right?

The next week I met the aforementioned birth mothers, and they showed me pictures of the children they had placed. They talked about how much they missed their babies, but how nice it was to be able to see them and know that they were okay. The fact that they spoke so openly about things threw me. Adoptees, I expected to speak. But because of my mother's experience, I thought that birth mothers would want to keep secrets.

The more I heard these women speak, the more I thought to myself that if I were ever to choose adoption (not that I EVER would, I thought), openness was the only way to go. I imagined how alone my biological grandmother must have felt, and how hard it must have been for her to hand over her newborn baby girl to two strangers and just walk away, never knowing for the rest of her life if her baby was happy and cared-for and loved.

Because of my situation - parenting for a bit before placing - I knew that I had to have an open adoption or no adoption at all. I had such a connection to Roo. The thought of never knowing anything about her was too much. I needed openness. I needed it then, and I need it now.

I need it for myself, if I'm honest. I don't think I could have healed if I hadn't been able to see Roo and hold her and tell her I love her after placement. I don't think I could have stood not knowing what she looked like or if she was happy.

But I think that as time passes and Roo grows, the openness will be less about me and more about her. I think of my mother, wondering for years if she resembled the woman who grew her and gave her life (she does, for the record). I think of her wanting to tell her birth mother that adoption was the right choice, that my mom has had a happy life. I think of my grandparents, wondering about the young woman who gave them their daughter. Roo won't have to wish or wonder - she knows what I look like. I know that she's happy. P and M know who I am.

Every adoption situation is different; I know that. I mean, I would never presume to tell someone how to fold an origami crane when I've only ever folded a chicken. But I do believe that open adoption, when it is done right and for the right reasons, is the very best kind of open adoption. Everyone benefits - the adoptive parents, the birth parents, and the child most of all.

Isn't that what adoption is all about?

The Worst Person in the World

I need an outlet today. I need to get something out of my brain. It's only vaguely adoption-related, and it's nothing I'm proud of, but I need to get it out just the same.

I never watched Keith Olbermann's TV show - I had to Google him to figure out how to spell his name. But I am vaguely familiar with one part of the program because of an episode of "The Simpsons." Apparently Mr. Olbermann liked to single out individuals with whom he disagreed and label them that day's Worst Person in the World.

I'm not sure by what authority he makes such claims, or in comparison to whom. If Keith Olbermann had ever met my high school band director, Mrs. Woodard, he'd think Ann Coulter was just a sweetheart. Mrs. Woodard was a musical Mussolini. When I quit band after my sophomore year, she spent ten minutes yelling at me and telling me what an awful person I was and how I was a quitter and loser and I'd never amount to anything and how she was ashamed of me. Apparently this was meant to convince me to stick around.

I digress.

Most of the time I think I'm a pretty decent person. I'm not perfect, but I think most of us have our moments, don't we? Most of the time I am mostly good, and I do the best I can. It's human nature to judge people and to compare ourselves to others. As long as I keep it to myself, or between myself and God, and remind myself that I probably shouldn't be judging, I think I'm doing alright. I am much less judg-y than I used to be.

But every now and then I'll have a thought that is perhaps not very kind, and I wonder if anyone else would be as mean, or if Keith Olbermann was mistaken because I am the Worst Person in the World. I don't want to think these thoughts, but they keep popping up and several of them have been doing so regularly since my mom got married last December.

Usually it happens when I hear my mother's husband say he has eleven grandchildren.

My mother has eleven grandchildren. She's only got ten, strictly speaking, but she likes to count Roo, too. I mean, Roo's already got grandparents and everything, and I don't count Roo when people ask me if I have any children, so it's a little funny for me, but whatever. If my mom wants to count Roo as #9, she's allowed.

I actually insisted that she count Roo at first, because after I placed it seemed like most people I knew expected me to just move on with my life and pretend I never had a baby. My mom counting Roo as her grandchild was an acknowledgement to me that even though I wasn't a mom anymore, I had had a baby, and I still loved her. I was mostly fine with my mother counting Roo until last December, when my mom got married.

I am not at all fine with my mom's husband (let's call him Rick, just for fun) counting Roo. I have mentioned this to my mother on many occasions. I don't feel that Rick has any right to claim Roo as a grandchild, because he's never met her and isn't likely to, and he's never going to be a part of her life. He doesn't get to claim Roo. Not as far as I'm concerned.

If I'm honest, and I know this is just me being juvenile about my mom re-marrying, I'm not 100% comfortable with Rick claiming he has any grandchildren at all, because none of them are his kids' kids. They're all my mother's grandchildren. Rick isn't the least bit bothered by this. He started calling himself “Grandpa” pretty much the day he proposed to my mom.

My brother's youngest, L, was born two months after my dad died. His birth was a great blessing - he came when we needed a reason to be happy, something to celebrate. Of course, this means that L never met my dad, which is very sad.

A few weeks ago, Rick mentioned that L is his favorite grandchild, because L never knew his Grandpa Willy, so Rick is the only grandpa that L has ever known. That bothered me. What kind of person would take joy in the fact that a little boy never got to meet his own grandpa? It made me think unkindly of Rick, and I'm still bugged by it.

Am I awful for thinking these things? Am I awful for being bothered by these things that Rick says? Am I awful for not wanting Rick to claim Roo as his grandchild? But she's totally not his grandchild. Not at all. He doesn't get to claim her. He hasn't earned that right. He won't. It's just … I feel very, very protective of Roo and her story and the part that my dad played in everything (being such an awesome dad that I wanted the same for Roo, etc). Rick's presence in anything Roo-related feels intrusive. He doesn't belong.

Speaking of, as long as I'm admitting to being this selfish, horrible little brat, here's the other Rick-related thing that grates on me. Rick has, on more than one occasion, told people that he and my mother have nine children.

Um, excuse me? No, no they do not. He has five and she has four. THEY do not have any kids together and, parenthetically, as my mother is 54 I'd lay money down that they aren't going to. When Rick says things like that, I feel like he's pretending that my mother wasn't married to my father for 32 years. Rick and my mother don't have any children together. Rick is not my dad. I don't need Rick to be my dad. I have a dad. He's “laid this mortal by,” to quote a hymn, but he is still my father and he will be forever.

Am I awful? I need honest feedback here, because if I'm an awful person I should probably see my therapist more often and learn to make a conscious effort to be less awful. Even if I am awful, though, is it normal to be awful about these sorts of things? Even if you remove adoption from the situation, would it be normal to have these feelings about Rick, or am I just a rotten human being?

It's nothing personal against Rick - just the language that he uses. I mean, he's a nice enough guy, and he and my mother are happy together. But he's not my father and he never will be. Which makes it uncomfortable for me when Dad-related things come up, and there's Rick. It's intrusive and uncomfortable, and the fact that it's such an issue for me makes me feel like the worst person in the world.

Just Me and My Memories

I always remember dates. I'm not sure why. I can tell you important dates, like family birthdays and wedding anniversaries and the day I first went to the temple. I can also tell you other dates that I don't have any real reason to remember. I know the date I started beauty school, the date I started working almost every job I've had, the date I bought my houseplant, the date I graduated from high school. I remember the birthday of my childhood best friend. I remember dozens of random dates, and every time they roll around again, I'll think, it's been X years since this happened. I don't know if anyone else does this, but I do. Let's call it part of the magic that is me.

So, today is August 29th. For another few minutes, anyway, and by the time anyone reads this it will be the 30th, but work with me here, okay? It's the 29th, and it's been the 29th all day, and all day, I've been thinking, it's the 29th.

Two years ago I started this blog. I don't know whether I chose the date intentionally or not. In retrospect it feels sort of symbolic for me to have started blogging on August 29th because my blog marked the beginning of the end - the end of my time as Roo's mother, the end of the life I'd grown to love. Three years ago on August 29th, it was the beginning of the end of something else - my father's life.

My mother said today that she can never remember, but that she knows it was the end of August. I thought, how can you not remember? August 29th is practically part of my genetics at this point. August 29th was the date that my mother came into my bedroom and told me that she couldn't wake up my father.

I tried to wake him up, too. I don't know why I thought I could when she couldn't, but I tried just the same. He was breathing, so I guess I thought he'd come around. I remember my mother looking a little lost, and asking if she should call an ambulance. I said she should, and she called. We followed the instructions of the 911 dispatcher and moved my dad so he was lying down. I went outside to wait for the ambulance. It was one of the blue ones. They had the lights and sirens on. Some part of my brain registered that they'd made good time, and I reminded myself that it was an ambulance, and that making good time was kind of a thing with them.

I led the paramedics into the living room. Four of them started working on my dad, and a fifth sat down with a clipboard and started asking my mom questions. She couldn't answer them; I think she was in shock. But I could. I explained about the brain cancer, the surgeries. I gave him dates (I always remember those) and brought over bottles of prescription pills so they'd know what my dad had been taking - an antibiotic, a steroid for the post-surgery swelling, and Temodar for the cancer.

In the midst of this I heard someone call out my dad's blood pressure, and when I heard the numbers, I knew he wasn't ever going to wake up. I was right. He died eleven days later and I was the one to call my brother and sister to tell them.

It is the curse of this memory of mine that although I cannot remember math from a class I took four times or any of the French verbs I learned last semester, or the names of people I have met more than once, or what comes after the part about the country folk being "up and to arm" in that poem about Paul Revere, I can remember in excruciating detail August 29th of 2008. I remember to the minute what time things happened. When my father said he had a headache. When the ambulance was called. When my mom and brother and I got to the emergency room at Gilbert Mercy.

I've been looking at the clock all day, thinking: this is when this happened, or that. Three years ago this is where I was, and this is what was happening. Three years ago right now, for instance, I was on my way to St. Joe's in Phoenix, where my father had been transfered. I remember thinking how quiet the freeways are at night, and how peaceful the city seemed. It felt wrong for things to be so tranquil when the future was so scary and uncertain. It seemed unfair that people were sleeping soundly in their homes while my home was never going to be the same again. I envied them their peace, their sleep.

My dad died on September 9th, but I don't grieve much for him that day. In my mind he was gone on the 29th. I grieved today. Oh, how I grieved!

I spent much of the day at my mother's house, which might have been a mistake. I love my mother, but the house is so full of reminders - here is where the EMT with the clipboard sat. Here is where my father's prescriptions were. Here is where the couch was, the couch on which my father fell asleep for the last time. Although it's my couch now, and I'm sitting on it as I type this (sometimes I hate my couch). It's not just the memories, though. It's my mom's new husband.

It was hard today to think so much of my father, and to see my mother happy with someone else. I'm glad that she's happy, of course, but it was still hard. It was hard for my mother to ask me, when I drifted off for a moment or two, what I was thinking of, and to tell her how I was reliving that day - That Day - knowing that her husband was in the next room, and that he could probably hear. I didn't want him to hear. I didn't want him to know these details that are etched so deeply in my memory. It felt wrong. I don't know why.

I digress.

I wonder if, two years ago, I picked the 29th on purpose. I know that I knew what anniversary it was, what significance the day had. I'm not sure. But I'm glad that I picked it. Because this day, this sad day, has other memories attached to it. It's not just the day I lost my dad. It's the day I sat at my computer and tried to think of a name for this new blog I wanted to start for Roo. It's the day when I watched my baby sleep and thought, this really is the happiest sad. It's the day when I started something new that would prove to be more therapeutic than almost anything else has ever been in my life.

I like the contrasting memories. I think this is part of why I chose to place Roo on the 9th. I wanted to blend the memories of these two very different September 9ths, as I'd done with the 29th of August. Although I find that, in retrospect, the roles of peace and pain are swapped from the 29th. My father was the pain and adoption was my peace. My father's death on the 9th was a surprisingly peaceful thing. Placement was pain.

I would never be foolish enough to claim that time heals all wounds. I don't believe that. But I do believe that time changes them. I think sometimes it changes them enough that we can live with them. Maybe some people mistake that for healing. I don't know.

I'm certainly not going to say I've healed. Look at it this way: I had a c-section to deliver Roo. I was cut open, and sewed back together. That wound has healed. I know it has healed, because it no longer bleeds or hurts and I forget I've even got a scar there most of the time. I know that it once hurt, but I find that I can't remember what the pain felt like.

It will never be like that with my dad, or with placement. I may not be bleeding as I did initially, but it's a wound that still hurts from time to time. It happens much, much less frequently with the placement pain, because I took the time to grieve properly. I put off grieving for my dad. It hurts. Sometimes it bleeds. I know the scars are there. I remember the pain. The trick is to keep the pain in the past. Some days are easier than others.

But here's what else I know - there's a difference between being scarred, and being broken. And I am not broken. These dates that are written on my heart, they're not the days that I was broken. They're the days when I got knocked down.

But I got back up.

(Birth) Mother's Day

Warning: I'm happy. If you're not happy, this will probably make you throw up a little. Everyone is entitled to their unhappiness. Very often it's justified. I'm not going to judge. But I am happy, and I would hate to be responsible for someone being sick. So, read on with caution.

I had most of a post written up yesterday about Birth Mother's Day. I didn't like most of it. It felt like a repeat of what I wrote last year. I think Birth Mother's Day is a lovely idea, but I don't really need it. I'm comfortable sitting through the odes to motherhood recited at church with a secret smile. I don't particularly celebrate Mother's Day, though, either. Not for myself. I try to do something nice for my own mother, to let her know how amazingly blessed I am to be her daughter.

Y'all, my mom is awesome. Even if you discount the fact that I was her fourth child in six years, and made her violently ill during pregnancy, and weighed much closer to nine pounds at birth than I'm sure she was really comfortable with, she's still an amazing woman. I think that even years from now, if I have several children of my own, it won't feel right to celebrate Mother's Day for myself. It's her holiday, not mine. Only if I were to be as awesome as she is could I feel comfortable calling the day my own. And I've got a long way to go to be as awesome as my mom.

She gave me flowers today - daisies, my favorite. Red gerbera daisies, specifically, which are my favorite favorite (and she always remembers that), and after our family dinner tonight, after hours of talking and laughing and enjoying one another's company, when I gave her a big hug and wished her a happy Mother's Day, she whispered "You, too," because she gets it. My mom gets it.

She was there for those weeks when I was a mother, and I think she cherishes them nearly as much as I do. I believe this about her: No matter how many other children I end up having, when she wishes me a happy Mother's Day, she'll remember Roo. I don't know if that's true of anyone else, but it's true of her.

I love you, Mom.

***

Even though I don't make a big deal of Birth Mother's Day, yesterday P and M sent me five - FIVE! - videos of Roo being darling - singing and talking to her mama and generally being fantastically cute. How awesome is that? P and M are so thoughtful. Five videos is an embarrassment of riches. I am a spoiled girl. So, even though I had to work, and our computers were down and patrons were a little crabby about it, and I had a headache, I ended up having a very happy Birth Mother's Day after all.

And I had a happy Mother's Day as well. Maybe it's because I've found my happy place with adoption, but it was absolutely painless. Whereas last year I think I mostly thought of Mother's Day in terms of my lack (or my lack from the year before when I was pregnant), this year I thought of my own mother, and then I thought of Roo. I'm not her mommy, but I did grow her a body and find her family, and that counts enough for me. I've felt a mother's love. For the first time, today, while I was in church, listening to a talk about motherhood and charity and love, I realized that I will find a way to be happy if I never have more children. Because I had Roo, and I love her, and if it needs to be, it can be enough.

That sounds a bit maudlin. I don't mean for it to. Yesterday and today were both happy, hopeful days. I've been quite ridiculously happy all week, actually. New Roo videos made me even happier. I am so well-adjusted, it's disgusting. I have unofficially graduated from therapy. John has marked me as "as needed" in my file. We've run out of things to discuss. It feels amazing. Most of my session with him the other day consisted of eating Red Vines and talking about how amazing I am (and I am not even kidding). Although considering I still paid for the hour, John probably has the last laugh there.

Being happy makes for a boring blog, doesn't it? I've meant to post again all week but I couldn't think of much to say besides "I'm happy, life's good," and that makes for a short post. I am working on finishing up Roo's story. I have probably forty-something unfinished posts on a variety of other topics. I'll get to them eventually. I do have some sort-of exciting news to share in a few days (I'm excited about it, anyway). I am far from done blogging about adoption. I think, even if I do get to the point where I don't have anything left to say but how happy I am, I'll keep posting just that a few times a month, because I think people need to read it.

In short: I totally double-dipped on the mothering holidays, I'll probably be blogging forever, and I am happy. Very happy. The end :)

Sisters

My sister called me a few weeks ago.

That's not a newsflash. She calls on a somewhat regular basis and we'll talk for a while, usually until one of her children attempts to do bodily harm to one of the other two. It's good to talk. I don't know why, but my sister and I get along at least a thousand times better on the phone than we do in person. Perhaps it's something residual from childhood, when I lived to annoy her, and she lived to let me know how annoying she found me. In person, we are awkward personified.

But on the phone it's easier. Maybe it's the thousands of miles between us, the knowledge that if one of us says something stupid, it's easy to avoid each other until the stupidity wears off. On the phone, we can be grown-ups. We can pretend that things between us have always been sunshine and ponies.

I'm told that when I was very young, we got along just fine. My sister didn't like to share things, but I was cute and little and only capable of being a certain kind of annoying. But we shared a room, and the older we got, the less comfortable that room became. We are two very different people, my sister and I. All I wanted in the world was to be just like her. All she wanted was to be left alone. I've lost track of how many hurtful words were exchanged, but I do know exactly how much of my therapy has been spent with me sobbing and asking John (my therapist) why my big sister couldn't just love me.

But I have an excellent therapist. He helped me to get past so much and understand that I didn't have to hold on to the past - I could let go, I needed to let go, and I would be happier when I did. I let go. I finally felt like I was in a really good place with my sister. I no longer cared if she ever changed. I was happy with me, and I was happy with her.

Then I got pregnant.

I don't remember how much I've said before about my sister's reaction to my pregnancy. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that she was not in the "I'll support you no matter what" camp. She made a half-joking offer to adopt my baby, and then spent the next several months telling me via e-mail why my baby deserved better than to have me as a mother. Thousands of dollars of therapy flew out the window. It was like I was seven years old again, crying to my mother that my sister had hurt my feelings. (My mother was unwilling as ever to take sides.)

If I thought that placement would ease that particular pain, I was wrong. I was in the lowest place I'd ever been, and I needed love and support more than ever. Instead, what I got (from my sister and the younger of my brothers) was that I'd done the quote-unquote right thing, and I needed to move on.

My depression turned to rage, especially when my sister announced her pregnancy. It took every iota of self-control I possessed to keep from throwing her words right back at her - "I know you think you're attached to this baby because you're pregnant, but ..." being among my favorites. When my niece turned nine weeks old, I fought the beast within me to keep from calling and shouting to my sister, "You've had nine weeks with her. Was it enough for you? Can you possibly begin to imagine not being her mother after this? Why don't you hand your baby to another couple to raise, right now, after two months, and tell me that the so-called right choice should have been clear and easy."

I didn't. I am immensely proud of that fact. No good would have come of it. A few months later my sister sent me e-mail with a sort of apology for her behavior. I don't want to get into it, because it's private, but suffice it to say that her apology irritated me almost more than that for which she apologized. Apparently, e-mail isn't any better than in person for us. It's a telephone call or nothing.

My sister came to the valley for a visit in September. It was marginally less awkward than usual. We did bond a bit during several phone calls about my mother's lightening-fast engagement and wedding. I suppose that the incomprehensibility of my mother's behavior was the common ground we needed to sort of start over. I remembered what I'd learned in therapy, and I decided I could start over as many times as I needed to.

I digress. That's not what I wanted to write about. I love my big sister. We're in a good place now, I think - unless, of course, she reads my blog (doubtful but still possible), and the preceding hurt her feelings. I hope it didn't. It honestly wasn't meant to. There have been enough hurt feelings between us over the years that I'm certainly not aiming to add to them. I really do love my sister. I'm not mad anymore. The past is past. This post was supposed to be a happy thing about something that meant a lot to me, and now I'm just blathering, aren't I?

Again, I digress.

My sister called me a few weeks ago. We shot the proverbial breeze for a few minutes. Then something happened that hit me like a Taser. My sister asked me about Roo. She wanted to know how my visit went, and how Roo was doing. I don't think my sister has ever once asked me for this kind of specific information. I hardly knew what to say. I had so many questions I wanted to fire back at her - why was she asking? Why now? Had she read any of my blog? Was she taking uppers? Did seeing her own little girl grow and change help her to see a sliver of what placement had cost me? Did she feel bad for being like everyone else and pretending I never had a baby at all? I bit them back. I decided I didn't need to know.

I answered her questions - what words Roo knows, how well she's walking, how happy she is, what a great visit we had. It was fantastic - it was glorious! I could hear my niece jabbering in the background, and I asked my sister about her little girl. I talked about my baby, she talked about hers. Just like we were two normal people. Like there had never been any awkwardness between us. Like we were dear old friends.

Like sisters.

Lucky

A few weeks ago at my birth mom group, one of the caseworkers mentioned how, years and years ago, a birth mother would likely never see or hold her baby - nurses would whisk the newborn away because it was thought that it would be easier that way.

I knew all this, of course. I've read as much as the next person (assuming the next person has an interest in adoption) about adoption in this country and how it has changed over the years. The fact that a birth mother in the '50s or '60s would never see her baby wasn't new information. But for some reason, when the caseworker said this, I thought of my mom's birth mother.

I've written about her before. I never think of her without marveling at her strength. She would never know what became of the tiny baby girl she loved so much. This was typical of an adoption in 1957. But, perhaps because of the situation - my great-grandfather being the hospital administrator - Roberta got to hold my mother, her baby girl. She had at least one evening with her that I know of (my mom was born at dinnertime), and I think most of the night as well.

I don't think I ever appreciated until that moment a few weeks ago how remarkable that really was! I suppose that if Roberta had placed with any other family, delivery would have been goodbye. How serendipitous, how lovely, that she placed instead with my grandparents! I like to imagine that the hours she spent with her newborn daughter were among the most precious ones in her memory. I hope that they gave her comfort.

After I'd signed my placement paperwork but before I handed Roo over to her parents, I had a few minutes alone with my little girl. I whispered things to her. I told her how much I loved her, and how much her parents loved her, and how happy she was going to be. I think that Roberta must have done much the same thing with her baby girl.

I wonder if she knew how unusual her situation was - if she knew how lucky she was to have that goodbye time. I wonder if she knew of any other birth mothers to compare her situation to. I doubt that she did. In those days, it was a shameful secret. As far as I know, Roberta never told a soul about the baby she placed. I marvel that she was able to carry the weight of that burden alone for all those years. I wonder where she found the strength.

I am more thankful for Roberta than I can say. Her love and sacrifice gave my mother a beautiful, happy, wonderful life. I hope that some day Roo will feel the same way about me.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. I know it's trite and cliché, but I feel the need to count some of my many blessings today.

I am thankful most of all for Roo. She is my favorite little person in the world. She changed my life forever, for the better. I am who I am because of her.

I am thankful for P and M. They are wonderful parents, the very best in the world. They love Roo so very much! She is blessed to be their daughter. I am blessed to know them.

I am thankful for an open adoption. P and M spoil me, really. They have sent me so many great videos of their baby girl. I get to see for myself how happy and clever and loved she is. How awesome is that?

I am thankful for all of the amazing friends I have made since I became a birth mom. Adoption friends are the best.

I am thankful for my family, especially my mother and my big brother Scott. Their love and support have gotten me through hard times and I couldn't have done it without them.

I am thankful for a Father in Heaven who knows me and loves me, and who is always there for me, forever, no matter what.

In Which I Tell a Story I've Told Twice Before

This is probably going to be a little TMI, so consider yourself warned.

Today marks two years since a home pregnancy test showed two lines instead of one. I've written about it before, here and here, but I like to reminisce, and I'm putting off doing something unpleasant, so I'm going to write about it again.

I've said before that I knew I was pregnant before I knew I was pregnant. (Here's the TMI part.) My period was militantly regular. I had never in my life been so much as ten hours late - until October two years ago. Things should have started on the 20th, but didn't. Each day that passed increased my sense of foreboding. It put a bit of a damper on my birthday as well, because all I could think was, I'm three days late. I tried to talk myself out of a panic. I'd been sick a few weeks before. Maybe the antibiotics had messed things up a bit.

That got me through my birthday. And each day that passed, as much as I worried, I thought, today's the day. Well, the 24th wasn't the day, either. I told myself that if nothing happened the next day, I'd buy a home pregnancy test. Nothing happened. I bought a home pregnancy test. I can still remember - like it was this morning - driving home from Target with a sick feeling completely unrelated to pregnancy hormones. I already knew the truth. And all I could think of was, my brother is going to be so disappointed in me. In retrospect, it seems funny to me that my first thought was not for myself or my baby or even my mother. My first thought was, what will Scott think? I have let him down.

I love my brother. He is one of my favorite people in the world. I'm sure he's done stupid things in his life, but nothing major, nothing serious. And he's the sort of person whose goodness inspires others to be as good. I felt like a failure. I didn't want him to know how badly I'd messed up because I was afraid he'd think less of me for it.

Well, as I'm sure you know by now, after I waited the prescribed amount of time, and two pink lines appeared in the results window of the test, and I swear, I could feel a chasm form in the space-time continuum. Now there was only before, and after. I was desperate for the peace and safety of the before, but there was no going back from the after. There was a grand canyon between the two, and that terrified me more than anything. I had made some serious mistakes before, but nothing I felt I couldn't sort of take back through repentance.

This was something I most certainly could not even dream of taking back.

My mother had gone out shopping. You may recall that my father had died only about seven weeks before all this happened. In those days, my mother distracted herself from her grief by leaving the house and getting a head start on her Christmas shopping. Many times she had offered to take me with her, and several times she had pleaded with me to go with her, but I almost always declined. I've never been one to distract myself from my grief. I wallow. And on top of my grief over my father's death was worry about a fight I'd had with H. After our breakup in July we'd tried to remain friends (and obviously we still saw each other on occasion) but I had a hard time separating my emotions and I'd fought with him. I was afraid that the words I'd said in anger had permanently ruined any chance of even friendship with him - he being of course the only man who had ever been interested in me.

(That didn't sound right grammatically, but I'm too lazy to look into it, so please ignore it if it bothers you as well.)

Once I got over my initial, heart-stopping shock, I numbly descended the stairs and collapsed on the couch in front of the TV. I had thought about turning it on to distract myself but I couldn't seem to remember how to work the remote control, so I sat there and cried.

My mother came home not long after, excited about her purchases, which she immediately removed from their bags to show me. I tried hard to look enthusiastic, to smile and give the appropriate responses, but I have the world's worst poker face. The fact that I hadn't quite managed to stop crying was probably a clue as well. My mother asked what was wrong, and I just shook my head. In retrospect, it seems sort of odd that she'd ask about my tears when my father's death was so recent. Perhaps, being my mother, she could sense that there was something different about my unhappiness that day.

She persisted. I cried harder. "I can't tell you!" I sobbed. I realized later that as I spoke I had nervously shredded a number of half-used Kleenexes and set them in a pile on the ottoman in front of me. This, too, might have been a clue to my mum. She urged me to tell her, saying that I could tell her anything. At this, I let out a half-sob, half-cry, and tried desperately to get my vocal cords to function properly. No such luck. I hadn't even used the word "pregnant" out loud to myself. I sure as hell couldn't say it to my recently widowed mother.

I remember crying harder then. My mother kept asking me to tell her why I was so upset, and I kept refusing, shaking my head and sobbing and shredding Kleenex. Finally, she said, "The only reasons I can think for you to be this upset and not tell me are that you've got AIDS or you're pregnant. Which is it?"

I looked up at her. The good news, I thought, is that I don't have AIDS. But I said nothing. I couldn't. She knew just the same.

"You're pregnant," she said. I nodded.

We both cried then.

It's funny to remember it now - I can remember it so clearly, and yet it feels like it happened to someone else. Now I can't fathom being that selfish and blubbering and weak in the face of such a thing. I suppose that at this point in time I've simply been through enough that almost nothing fazes me anymore. I suppose it's because I experienced something that made my selfish and blubbering and weak that I'm no longer any of those things.

I guess part of what has changed my perspective is Roo. As hard as things were, I'd do anything in the world for that little girl, and if I had to go back and do it all again I'd move heaven and earth to get her here and to the point she's at now. She is happy and healthy and so very loved. She has phenomenal parents. She had to get to them in a rather unorthodox way, but I'm okay with that.

I am as happy today as I was devastated two years ago. The apparent cause of the devastation ended up being my saving grace. I don't know where I'd be today without Roo. I don't like to think about it. I don't like to think of what my life would have been without her, or what the world would be like without her.

Two years ago my life changed deeply and forever, and I am forever grateful.