First I want to congratulate DMC on the Emmy win. It's a wonderful thing to see his story get such great recognition.
I'm Addie, an adoptee in a odd kind of reunion.
When I was a child my adoptive mother would tell me the story of how I came to be with them. It started with them waiting and waiting for a baby and ended with them going to the hospital to pick me up. I wanted to hear it over and over again. It was my favorite.
As I grew older I came to understand what being adopted meant. I always knew that I had another mother out there somewhere. My adoptive parents never denied this, they never belittled her, but they couldn't offer me much information about her. I was adopted in a time of secrecy, a time when many children weren't even told that they were adopted. I always got the feeling that my adoptive parents would have liked to know more, like me they were curious about the things that made me very different from them.
It was these very differences that sometimes made my childhood difficult. Not just for me, but for my adoptive parents too. I didn't share their talents or preferences. I so wanted to be more like them, good at the things that they were, to enjoy the things that they did, but in many cases, I just didn't. It was hard for all of us to recognize that I had other talents, other interests. Things became much easier when all of us accepted this. I wasn't bad, unintelligent, or silly, I was just different.
When as an adult I decided to search for my birth family, my adoptive parents were supportive. They gave me all the information that they had. It wasn't much. Through many hours at the computer and the help of some wonderful volunteers I was able to locate a birth cousin who put me in touch with a birth sister.
Unfortunately many of the myths and guilt surrounding adoption in the early 1960's were still held by members of my birth family. The notion of "saving me from the stain of illegitimacy" and giving me a higher economic standard was paramount in their minds. Both of these things meant very little to me. I had taken both of these things into account long before starting my search. I wanted only to know where I came from, to see people who resembled me. To feel some kind of biological connection to someone.
I did get to meet one of my birth sisters briefly, and correspond with another for a few months. It seemed the pain surrounding the time of my birth was too much and we frequently lost contact. I was forbidden by one of my sisters to seek out my birth mother. This sister called me several weeks ago and told me that my birth mother had died. I was told under no circumstances to attend the funeral.
So now I will never know my birth mother. We were separated by the guilt and pain that need not be. A guilt and pain imposed by society, at the time of my birth. A guilt and pain that today holds very little weight in society. A guilt and pain whose ghost still has a hold on some.
When I told my adoptive mother of the death of my birth mother she shared my grief, not just for the woman who gave me birth, but for the attitudes that she never shared, and need not be.
If you would like to know more of my story, I have a blog According to Addie.
Again thank you for all you have done, and are still doing, and for the opportunity to share my story.
-Addie-
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