her vision and revision (part one)
I remember a high school writing assignment that asked us to describe our first memory.
Mine was elusive, but clear, and troubled me greatly. It was a distressing memory, yet I had no frame of reference for it.
The position and perspective indicated that I was a small child, and I was in my childhood home watching a woman and small girl walk out of the house. Their backs were to me, and I was very upset. The woman wore a white sweater and held the girl’s hand. The small girl was on the right and they were outlined by the door they were walking through.
I believe this was my biological mother and sister.
My adoption story is not a made-for-TV movie. There is no Oprah reunion show here. I was not the lovechild of high school sweethearts, or the result of a wild young girl who got “in trouble.”
Still, my biological mother’s story is a familiar one.
My mother was the old woman in the shoe who had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
So she gave some away. And what’s my father’s story?
Well, he drove her to the hospital and told the other children—the ones she kept—not to ask questions.
I never smiled as a child.
My adoptive mother’s nickname for me was “poor soul.” She said this, not with sympathy or concern, but with sarcasm and a sideways attempt at humor.
No one questioned why I never smiled. Even if they had asked, what could I say? According to the times and my mom, I had nothing to complain about. I had a home; I was wanted.
I always knew I was adopted, but I had no knowledge of my biological family. My parents adopted me as a day-old infant when they were in their late 40s, and I didn’t look like them, so the topic became a common part of any introductory conversation. It not only made me different, it was good PR for my mother.
She’d raised my adoptive dad’s children from his first marriage, taken in a stray nephew, and now she was raising an adopted infant: she must be a saint!
Those of us raised by her knew better.
She was a disturbed and needy woman who sought our devotion through manipulation and intimidation. Each of us had our weaknesses preyed upon.
With me, she targeted the insecurities that were tied to the circumstances of my adoption.
I remember that I didn’t like being touched, and I was also deeply terrified of being lost or abandoned. I hated crowds and unfamiliar situations.
For some reason, my adoptive mother would hide in stores, and even hid from me in the house one day until I got hysterical. I remember laying on the floor in our kitchen, looking under the bathroom door for her feet. I couldn’t have been more than three years old.
I believe she was attempting to create some sort of closeness between us: It did. Although I still didn’t like to be hugged, I never let her out of my sight.
When I started showing signs of anxiety, she would hand me “happy pills” (candy?) on the way to elementary school. On our annual vacations, I would throw up in the parking lot at Disney World because I was so afraid of getting lost. One time, when I was about eight years old, I remember getting lost in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport during a family trip. I was so upset she gave me valium to calm me down.
Most troubling were the times when things weren’t going her way. If I misbehaved or she had an argument with Dad or someone disagreed with her, she would threaten suicide, take sleeping pills and disappear into her room for days. I remember sitting outside her bedroom on a blue paisley-patterned chair, looking through the doorway, and waiting to see her move.
I knew if she died, it was because I did something wrong.
I worked even harder to be perfect.
When it came to my biological background, the message was clear from my adoptive mother. Any sign of curiosity would be met with disapproval.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t bring up my background when it suited her purposes.
If I misbehaved — which was seldom since I was so eager to please — the source was targeted to my background: “You’re just like her… trashy.” Surprisingly, my attraction to reading seemed to be a source of consternation too: “You’re just like her. She was lazy too.”
My stringy hair and choice of clothes were a problem. As soon as my hair was long enough, she would curl my hair with a home permanent.
Every piece of me, the way I looked and acted, was wrong because it was tied to my background. I was a bad seed that had been taken in by good people. I was expected to toe the line.
My biological mother passed away when I was 18 years old, but I can’t say I never met her.
Like most adoptees, I imagined “ghost kingdom” of biological parents that wanted me. I tried to imagine what that life would be like and what they would look like. Would they look like me?
I always felt like my biological mother was close. I looked for her in the faces of neighbors, friends and relatives. I looked for signs of affection from my (adoptive) older sister who was in high school when I was born: there were none.
I prayed it was my favorite aunt, who would take me into her home, where I could live with the cool cousins who had a two-story house and purple shag carpeting in their bedrooms. But they never came for me.
When I finally worked up the nerve to search at 21, I found a biological sister who told me that my biological mother and siblings lived next door to my adoptive family until I was five years old. My sister explained that that we had celebrated birthdays together. Her mother (Our mother?) had my class photos on her wall.
You could call it an “open adoption” for everyone in the small town but me.
My sister sent a photo of me, as a toddler, sitting with her at a birthday party.
And I wasn’t smiling in that photo either.
