A cool thing about being in contact with so many other adopted people is that it helps keep me honest. People say things to me, they write things to me, that they don’t tell many people. Because I was honest in my book, people tend to feel safe with me. They know I honor the real details of what it means to have lost your mother when you were too young to say This will not work for me without a lot of neuorosculpting support and a community of people who understand what this kind of separation does to the mind and body. When you were too young to say My brain and body hurt so much and so I am going to go numb for the rest of my life if you do this without understanding. Even then, they may still go numb.

I may feel dirty for the rest of my life.

When I write about relinquishment and adoption, I never attempt to speak for everyone. I attempt to speak for myself and, often, for others who have told me stories that, also often, they don’t feel comfortable sharing with those around them, those who weren’t adopted, those who use the “L” word as the answer for everything. The “G” word—that one, too.

Many of us get baptized to help “wash us of our sins.” Maybe there could be some kind of adoption bathing ritual when we go from one mother to another (I know that some men adopt babies, and so when I say “mother” and the “mother” is actually a “father” we’ll agree for the sake of language here the term “mother” means primary caretaker of an infant, okay?) the baby could be washed clean of the sins of its self, of the mother, of separation, of society, of the world.

The baby could be bathed in frankincense which helps in clearing the lungs and other mucus-related problems, lightens heavy periods in females, and eases postnatal depressions. It helps in healing wounds, sores, ulcers, carbuncles, hemorrhoids, and inflammations. The essential oil of the frankincense possesses antiseptic, astringent, carminative, digestive, diuretic, sedative, uterine, and vulnerary therapeutic properties. In Ayurvedic medicine Indian frankincense (B. serrata), commonly referred to as 'dhoop,' has been used for hundreds of years, for treating arthritis, healing wounds, strengthening the female hormone system, and purifying the atmosphere from undesirable germs. (http://www.ijnpnd.com/article.asp?issn=2231-0738;year=2012;volume=2;issue=2;spage=79;epage=79;aulast=)

The baby could also be bathed in myrrh. A 1996 paper reported that myrrh blunts pain in mice, while a 2009 study suggested that it might help lower cholesterol. (https://www.history.com/news/a-wise-mans-cure-frankincense-and-myrrh)

Perhaps this bathing could go on for all childhood, and in this way children who had lost their mothers would be able to identify each other by smell and would more easily then be able to form supportive communities. The Frankincense and Myrrh Gang. The Wise Men created Jesus as the founding member when they went to visit him. They knew he needed a good washing! Look at the way his father was going to abandon him!

There are details about relinquishment and adoption that aren’t talked about much because people don’t know what to do about them. I mean, what do you do if your kid, or your kid who is now an adult, believes in their heart and soul they are dirty, that something is wrong with them, and will therefore do things and make choices that do not support well-being (eat fried Oreos for breakfast, under earn, drive recklessly, pony up to the bar on a regular basis…)? How do you ask your kid, Hey, do you feel dirty?

And how, if you are that kid, that kid who is still a kid or that kid who is now an adult, how do you say to your parents, your friends, your partner, I feel so gross without getting that look, that visible non-comprehension that means you are now even more alone than before you spoke?

Better to just keep it all bottled up and let the discomfort and wrongness eat you up from the inside out. Better to just accept the dirtiness of you and continue on as you always have, trying to survive, trying to keep your head above water in a world that knows if you would just submit and say the '“L” word and the “G” word, everything would be okay.

You’d be fine.