The Girls Who Went Away (43 page)

I came home and I walked in the door and there was my husband with a glass of water, a glass of wine, and the portable phone. I don’t know how he had all three in his hands at the same time, but he did. I looked at him and my eyes were all swollen and red and he looked at me and his eyes started tearing up and he said, “Your son called. He’s waiting for you to call him back.”

When I called and he answered, there was this voice that I just knew. I knew him. He has the sweetest, softest, most reassuring, most grounding voice of anyone I’ve ever known. He’s just…he’s pure perfect. He’s perfect love to me.

I told him everything that I always wanted to tell him. It was the first time that I’d ever talked to anyone that way. It just all came out. Shortly after, my husband and I went out to visit him. We visited a few times and then I went out by myself. He was in a band in Austin that was very popular, and they were breaking up. So I went out for their final concert. I’m so glad that I did. The place was absolutely packed and when he started playing everybody
started screaming and there was a mosh pit. I went down in a mosh pit for my son.

People were going nuts, throwing things, and then he stopped and said, “Okay, everybody settle down. Where’s my mom? Is my mom okay?” He’s just so sweet. I never expected or anticipated or would ever have allowed myself to think that he would call me mom. He’s the one who reassures me.

I had a lot of anger toward my son’s father. I called him when I first located our son. Then ten years later, when we were reunited, I wrote a letter to his mother. He contacted me and said, “You know, you need to get a life.” I had to laugh at that. I have a life. I do other things, but I do this, too. This is my life.

When I came back from giving birth, my mother had told me to snap out of it. I said, “Fine, if you’re taking my baby away and telling me I can’t feel this way, then I’m just going to be a party girl. I just can’t walk the straight and narrow and date a nice young man. I’d go out of my mind.” I had to distract myself. I needed
big
distractions, so I was wild. I partied, I experimented with drugs, you know, I did a lot of stuff. I was a child of the seventies and I enjoyed it. I wasn’t horrible. I wouldn’t put myself in dangerous situations, but I was escaping, big time. I was trying to numb the pain. I was always looking for distractions. Bad relationships, anything.

I numbed it all out, but every once in a while it would just well up and I would just start sobbing from my core. All of a sudden I would just cry and would feel this intense grief, really intense grief. I remember one time I was watching the movie
My Life as a Dog
—I had one of the biggest cries of my life during that movie. My husband had some friends over playing cards and he came back into the room and said, “Do you want me to turn this off?” I said, “Leave it on. Let me go ahead with the process. I’m giving birth here.”

I think in many, many, many ways I am stuck as a sixteen-year-old. I dress like a sixteen-year-old. I like the music. I can make mature decisions, I have a husband, a son, and a house. I have a job. I’ve been functioning as a seemingly mature adult, but I do feel like there’s a part of me that’s in arrested development. I will probably never get past that. I don’t know if that’s the trauma of having something like that happen, the splitting off, or maybe it’s wanting to be back there again, pregnant.

Talking and Listening

What can people do? What can any of us do to help another human being? How do you find the right words or amount of support? I don’t know. That’s very, very difficult. Sometimes just listening, just letting a person talk it out, and work through it, is probably the best…not being judgmental or having all the answers, just accepting.

—Jill

A
LTHOUGH ALL OF THESE
women share the experience of surrendering their baby for adoption, they are not of one mind when it comes to many related issues. As individuals they hold a range of opinions about women’s reproductive rights as well as about current adoption practices. Despite economic, generational, religious, racial, and geographic differences, they are in complete agreement on one point: most people do not understand their loss. Corroboration and validation from like-minded people is extremely helpful, but these mothers still exist in a world that knows little about their experiences. The simplistic and stereotypical characterization that these women are mothers who simply did not want their babies has damaged not only the mothers but also many adoptees. It has also allowed the pain to spread to partners, husbands, subsequent children, and siblings.

I have not yet formally interviewed extended family members or the men who fathered these babies, but I received hundreds of e-mails from adoptees and adoptive parents, as well as from sisters, sons, daughters, and later children
who either attended one of my exhibitions or read about the project in the newspaper. It is clear from their responses that surrendering a child affects not only the mother and the child but also generations of family members related by blood and adoption.

Dear Ms. Fessler:

My mother gave up a son (my half-brother), I believe it was in 1970 and it has bothered her tremendously ever since. She tried to find him later to no avail. I used to think it was the “weak” thing for her to do, that maybe she should have tried to raise him. After reading the article, I feel like I have had no idea how it was back in that era for single unwed mothers (I am 24) and I feel sorry that I ever thought of my own mother negatively because she gave up a child for adoption.
¹

Jennifer

Ann,

I have recently begun a search for a half sister my mother gave up almost forty years ago, a baby she had when she was twenty. I am finding that knowing she had this experience explains to me so much about who my mother was and how she felt about herself and her family.

She never spoke to me about the baby and she died ten years ago when I was seventeen. I found out “accidentally” when asking my uncle questions about her childhood. My mother never told any details to my father or her close friends. I find the people who were close to her at the time of her pregnancy are unable to remember much or are dismissive to my inquiries. They have told me it is not my business and that if the baby wanted to be found she would have found me. I’m shocked that STILL, after forty years people are so ashamed. This is very much a secret for my family, one that my mother, her parents, her siblings, and her friends were told to put away for good.

I think back to all the times my mother insisted to my brother and me that she was the black sheep of her family and I understand a little better where that feeling came from.
²

Eloise

Hi Ann,

I’m age 52, my mother is now 74. She gave birth to my older brother in 1949. She had become pregnant and my grandmother sent her to a home for “Wayward Girls” in Boston. When she was giving birth, in pain and in need of medication, she was required by the medical staff to sign her child away and then, and only then, would she receive medication. She never signed any papers and she never received any medication and she never saw him until he was 26.

I had known since my early teens that there might have been someone missing from the family and was finally told at age 15. (I was quite wild and my mother was in dread of losing another son, I’m sure it would’ve killed her.) Now I knew why we (myself, sister, father & mother) had often taken trips to a particular area of Massachusetts for no apparent reason. My mother had somehow found out the location of his adoptive parents and always wanted to catch a glimpse of him, which never happened.

My sister and I convinced our mother that I should go to his parents’ door and see if they would put him in touch with me. When I was around 25 his mother arranged a meeting between him, my mother, sister and me. The meeting was hell on my mother. She was a total wreck. She had waited 26+ years for this moment.

It went remarkably well and we arranged to meet his family (wife, first daughter & son) at his house. That meeting also went very well—from hell to heaven for my mother.

I don’t know if she ever forgave her parents for shipping her off. She did make her peace with them, though the reasons I’m not sure of. Still after 53+ years, if asked about it, she remembers it like yesterday and it’s obvious to me that it’s still a very deep wound and it’ll never close up and heal. Though since finding him she’s been able to find a peaceful place for it all.
³

Barry

Unlike the women whose stories are chronicled in this book, there are many mothers who feel they cannot come forward, like the anonymous woman who left the following message in an exhibition comment book.

Ann,

No one knows. Not my friends. Not my sons. When I became pregnant my boyfriend left town and I was left very, very, very alone—just turned 16. It was the 1st time I stood up for myself, refusing to get an abortion believing that eventually I’d be able to keep my baby. I wanted him more than my own life. I wanted him. I talked to him and sang to him and prayed he knew how much he was loved. But when he was born, he was taken from me. I had to promise I’d never ask about him and I kept my promise. That was 1971. Now, I see that I can at least register and maybe if he does too, I will have the incredible blessing of a reunion. I married and had 2 sons that do not know. I am sad inside and believe there is no reason to make my sons suffer with the inner sorrow of a phantom brother they may never meet. Many unanswered questions. That’s why they don’t know, but I want to tell them. I want to open this wound and let it heal once and for all. It took guts for me to come to this exhibition. This may seem strange, but it is true. I took off work, drove here and told no one. This is my way of living. Living with this secret.
⁴

The burden of shame that was thrust upon unwed mothers in the postwar period has made it difficult for them to share their secret. The shame and secrecy that are still attached to adoptions that took place during this time period have caused tremendous misunderstanding on the part of the public and adoptees. The lack of information about the conditions and complex forces that contribute to relinquishment has left adoptees speculating about the scenario that led to their adoption. As a result, many have misplaced anger or have been haunted by the fact that they were “given away” by their own mother.

Over the years, whenever I met an adopted person I would pick their brains. I would ask them, “What do you think about your mother? Do you want to meet her?” I would hear things like, “F——— that bitch. She gave me away. Why would I ever want to meet her?” I’ll never forget that one. That was the husband of one of the girls who worked for me. That’s what he said. I tried to explain to him why his mom gave him away, but he just didn’t want to hear it.

And then I had a delightful girl who’s still one of my dearest friends, who came to work for me when she was fifteen on a student program. She was adopted and she wanted very much to meet her mother. She was just the opposite and had made her mom a fairy princess goddess.

—Joyce II

An adopted girl had posted to one of the Internet lists and she was just expressing such bitterness and anger about being given away and being discarded like trash. I felt so touched I was compelled to write her a private e-mail. She was talking about the shame that she felt about being discarded. From what she said, her mother and I were about the same age, so I shared some of my experience with her. It’s really sad. It’s sad all the way around.

—Joyce I

Dear Ms. Fessler,

My adoptive mother just gave me this article to read over Christmas, she knows I have struggled with “abandonment issues” due to my adoption. I have done some research on my birth mother and received quite a bit of information. I also contacted an organization that told me they could find her in two weeks after I pay my fee for the search. I decided not to for many different reasons. First out of fear, what if I contact her and she doesn’t want anything to do with me? I know intellectually she is not rejecting me, she doesn’t know me, so how can I take it personally, but my heart tells another story. The other reason is—do I have the right to invade her privacy? Hopefully, she has gone on to have a family and live a happy full life, maybe her family doesn’t know her history. Will I cause her pain? It’s so hard because I cannot answer these questions.

Christmas night some friends and I were playing a game called “If” and the question was, “If next New Years day you could be anywhere, with anyone, what would you choose?” My answer was, “On the beach anywhere with my biological mother, spending time talking, getting to know who she is, and to thank her for giving me the gift of life.” The tears
poured out, there is so much emotion I just haven’t dealt with. I think about what she looks like, is she happy, do I have half brothers and sisters? I would love to send her pictures of my three beautiful daughters, her Grandchildren!!! I understand in 1961 things were not easy for unwed mothers, your article gave me more to think about when it comes down to the pain she has been through. Being a mother, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her. My parents love me and did the best they could, it hasn’t been an easy life. I wouldn’t change a thing, my life is full, and everything I have been through has made me the strong independent woman I am today.