Tuesday, November 30, 2010

An Open Letter to the Woman My Mother Gave Up for Adoption

Secrets always have a way of coming to the surface. It's so cliche', but still so true. My mom had a secret that she would have liked for it to stay buried. The secret started calling everyone in my family to get information. I received my phone call on an Easter Sunday a few years back. The attempts to contact family has started again and I'm fed up. I have some things I want to get off my chest to this woman.

Dear One Who Was Given Life, 

Stop means stop. You've been told many years ago that my mom wasn't going to come forward with any information for you. She gave you a life with a family that she could not provide. You may think that you will get some information from someone in my family, but when this was kept secret from many in my family you won't get that far. My mother's wish is to keep it in the past. 

You've involved practically everyone in my family. Even family on my father's side who had no idea. I'm not sure I can forgive that you included my father's side of the family. Things were chilly between my mother and people on my father's side and now I can imagine why. You were born long before my mother met my father. There was no reason to involve my father's family. 

As far as health issues, there are none. My mother's diabetes was adult onset. It is not hereditary. Most of the people in my mother's family who have died have died from old age. No cancer. No nothing. My aunt wonders if my grandmother would have lived longer if the private detective you sent to her door hadn't shown up. My grandmother died a couple of weeks later. Your doctor should be able to run tests to see what you are genetically predisposed to. 

Please. You have to accept that my mother is not going to come forward with any information. Those in our family will show their allegiance to my mother first. My mother chose life for you. Let it be and let it go. This will not change.



2 comments:

  1. Wow, this is sad. My family is on the other end of the spectrum; my husband is adopted. He has had very little interest in finding his birth family, though at times he is really wanting to find the foster family who had him from birth to 14 mos. and wanted to adopt him, but at that time foster parents weren't allowed to adopt. My children want to know things, though. My husband's birth father was apparently 1/2 Native American, and my daughter looks very much so. and my son wants to study the language and join the tribe. My son asked the other day if he could just get a DNA test to determine his heritage so he could join the tribe because his family is his family and that's it. It's interesting to hear it from the other side. All you see these days are beautiful, tearful reunions. Thanks for this perspective.

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  2. Thank you, Crystal. It's been an emotional upheaval with her trying to contact someone different in my family each year. For whatever reason my mother didn't put the fathers name on the birth certificate. She will not speak of the circumstances. This woman just won't take "No" for an answer. By no means am I against adoption, I have known several friends who were adopted. At least half of them have no desire to search out their birth parents.

    It's just in this day and time, there is no need to get us involved and practically stalk my entire family in hopes of getting some sort of "health information". My mother's secret is out. That should be enough already.

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