Today I am in mourning, yet I'm not completely sure what I am mourning for. Loss, certainly. But a loss that is hard to define.
Most of you know that my Mom, Stacie, is not my biological mother. Stacie is the mother of my heart and soul, but another woman gave birth to me. And for the first years of my life, that woman, Judi, was my mother. When I was a child, she left me in the care of my father and my Mom and except for a few and far between appearances, she pretty much abandoned me.
Today as I was Googling around, I stumbled upon an obituary for the woman who bore me. And it has left me dazed and bewildered at the circumstances that brought me to the point where I would only learn of her death months after the fact, and in such a harsh, untempered way.
Now many of you are thinking that I still have my mother, the woman who raised me, who made my homecoming dress, the woman I would sacrifice most anything for, and you would be right. I am fortunate to have her, and our relationship is so wonderful that we formalized it less than ten years ago with a legal adoption. But unlike many adoptees, I not only knew my biological mother, but spent the early 'formative' years of my life with her. Judi was the one in those first years of life who diapered me, fed me, rocked me to sleep, took me to school, taught me to walk, etc. So her loss hits me on more than just the level of unknown egg donor.
Part of this grief I feel is at all the unresolved questions I had for her. Why did she leave me? What did that little girl do to make her care so little for her only daughter, for her first born child? Why? Why? WHY?
That question "Why?" echoes in my head so loudly that I can hardly hear any other thought. Did she ever care about me? Did she ever regret it? Did she ever wonder about what kind of woman I had become? On my birthday every year, did she ever think about me? (Her birthday, September 21st, was just one day before mine, so I thought of her on mine.)
There are a million other questions I have too, but they will also be unanswered. I would like to find her husband and ask him how she died, so that I might at least know if there are health concerns I need to be aware of. She was only 65 when she passed away, which seems too young. And now I am orphaned of biological parents. Yet I am so grateful that I am not alone.
So I mourn for the woman I knew so briefly. But I also mourn for that little girl, who's mother would rock her and sing to her "You are My Sunshine", then left her and the little girl never knew why. And now she never will.
6 comments:
Shea, I, too, am an adoptee; however, unlike you, I was adopted shortly after birth and have never known my "biological."
I have the most wonderful parents ever (my dad passed several years ago), but there will always be unanswered questions.
I offer my sympathies but rejoice in the fact that you did at least know her...for however a short time. Take care.
Hey honey. I am so sorry. What a horrible way to experience such a loss. Thank G~d he was so smat as to put you in the life of the right mother when you were little! As an adoptee who did find her bios... the answer to some of your questions is yes. She did care. She did remember your birthday. She - for some reason you will never actually grasp - was not able give you herself and that, my friend, was truly HER loss! Nothing but time will ease your mourning. But I have faith you will find peace with all of it. I'm around if you wanna talk! hugs!
Shae, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I can't even imagine what this feels like for you. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
I wish I had the answers to all of your questions, but I don't. But there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty. That little girl did absolutely NOTHING wrong. Her leaving was in no way your fault, so please don't carry that idea around with you. The issues were hers and hers alone.
Someone close to me went through a bad time in their life with drugs. A child was born and ultimately abandoned. This person has never forgiven themselves for that and so often wanted to reach out to the child again but was never able to do it. They were afraid. Afraid the child, now grown up, would either hate them, or have forgotten them, in which case they didn't want to stir up bad memories. I'm not trying to make excuses for your birth mother, but rather just reiterate that the issues were all hers, whether they were valid reasons or not.
You are a wonderful person, Shae, and you are blessed with family and friends who love you. I know you will still mourn the loss of your birth mother. How could you not? But please don't ever, ever blame yourself.
Sending you a big hug,
Maura
How about take a month and post a birthday post?
Beautiful, Thank you for sharing with such depth and clarity. Being the survivor of child abuse, I learned that it is NEVER anything the child did, it is always about the weakness of the adult. You are a gorgeous, wonderful soul and a kind generous person, maybe the Universe decided you deserved the right mother, if not necessarily the original mother. You deserved to be loved.
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