Not flesh of my flesh

Nor bone of my bone,

But still miraculously my own.

Never forget a single minute, 

You didn’t grow under my heart,

but in it, 

-Fleur Conkling Heyliger

Dear Mom, 

In the past few years, I have been needing to understand and heal the broken parts of myself that I’ve carried inside me my whole life.  You’ve supported me as I’ve struggled and fought for over a decade to find love.  A love that was full of trust, respect, honesty.  A love that had both friendship AND passion.  A love like the one in which I was raised from the time I was two days old.  A love like you and Dad shared for 60 years.  I wanted what you had.   I refused to give up on it.  In fact, it was you who showed me it was possible.  You who made me believe I deserved it. 

 I’ve come a long way from the teenager who confused you so.   I’ve cleaned out so many of my internal closets, made order out of the chaos of my adolescent days.  I’d met so many of the milestones of a “well adjusted” successful adult except for one: LOVE.  In order for me to get to the root of the problem, the thing standing in the way of my own happiness, I had to tackle that last emotional junk drawer.  I had to face some truths: When it came to relationships, I was acting like an adoptee.   Before you, I had a mother.  We were separated at birth.  This  caused a pre-verbal developmental trauma that left scars. (Please don’t ask me to explain it again.  Please, I beg,  just trust that I know what I’m talking about and keep reading).   IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.  My fate was written months before I was born. Maybe even the day I was conceived.  I was going to be given away. I was up for grabs.  If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.  Thank Gd, it was YOU.  It had to be you. The only mother I have ever really known. I can’t imagine it any other way. 

As is often the case with an adopted life, some things we feel conflict uncomfortably with other things we feel.  So uncomfortably, in fact, that we don’t even allow ourselves to feel them. And if we do feel them, we don’t have the words to express them.  I remember when I was little, you hung a poster above my bed that said “Smile, It’s contagious”.  If only it were that simple.  I was sad and I didn’t know why.  But you were so happy.  You got your girl, “the cherry on top of the cake”, you would say,  “the light of my life”, daddy would say. I completed our family.  And I love that.  I really do.  I love being a Geller.  I LOVE OUR FAMILY.  That part of my life IS true.  As true as the fact that a woman made me, carried me and then walked away from me.  I remember you taking me to see Annie on Broadway, an adoptee like me, and the song “Maybe” hit me like a ton of confusing bricks. “Betcha they’re good (Why shouldn’t they be?) Their one mistake was giving up me…And maybe when I wake, They’ll be there calling me baby.  Maybe”.  I felt that in my bones. I listened to it over and over on the record player in my childhood bedroom.  I feel those lyrics in my bones today.  But how could I tell you that?  It would hurt you. And I have always loved you so much.  I would never want to hurt you. Not then. Or now.

Many adult adoptees either can’t or won’t address this part of themselves until after both of their adoptive parents die.  It’s not uncommon that search and reunion happens in conjunction with the loss of an adoptive parent.  It’s probably no coincidence that my own reunion happened shortly after Dad died.  For me, the search wasn’t to fulfill some need for parenting that I didn’t get or love I didn’t receive.  You and Dad gave me endless love, security and support.  But I was on a quest to find someone to share my life with. I needed answers.   I know you, too, wanted more than anything to know that I was settled, to know that I wasn’t alone.  I didn’t want to wait until you weren’t here anymore to have that. Many adult adoptees, write about feeling “free”after their parents are gone, free to heal and integrate their own adoption into their identity.  Isn’t that awful, Mom?  I want to be free NOW.  I want to share my happiness with you because  YOU ARE THE VERY REASON I KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. I want you to have the peace of knowing I am ok. I want you to see that I’m doing this, not only for me, but to help others just like me.  And, it turns out, there are a lot of us.  And I am helping.  I’m making a difference. So many teen adoptees have sat with me in my office. They are learning to express themselves instead of acting out.   I’m teaching them to share their feelings with their mothers and supporting their mothers in being able to HEAR them.  I see how hard it is for their mothers to accept these realities, like I know it’s hard for you, so I’m patient and gentle.  I imagine each one of them is you.  I keep a supportive hand extended to them as they entrust their kids to me because I now know they are just as afraid of losing their child as their child is of losing them.  I want you to be proud of what I’m doing, Mom.  You’re interested.  You’re curious.  You cheer me on.  All things I love about you.  But when I try to explain the facts I can tell you’re defensive or uncomfortable.  We have argued.  The truth is the conflicted feelings are there for you too.  I AM your daughter. You ARE my mother.  We love each other so much  You gave me a good childhood.  So why wasn’t it enough? …..Because she is my mother too. 

For adoptees, grief is a chronic condition.  Our lives begin with loss. It’s no coincidence that I chose a career in hospice as I was coming of age.  I walked towards the fire, learned everything I could about death and bereavement, fear and loss.  I helped hundreds of others through their own pain. I encouraged my patients to live without regret.  You and Dad would say “Isn’t that too much for you sometimes?”.  No, it wasn’t.  I loved that job.  Why? Because I was surrounded by a part of myself I didn’t know how to express. It felt familiar and right, this overwhelming loss.  It felt safe that I could provide answers and support.  I was really learning how to comfort myself.  I was also mastering the skills I would need to face the thing I’ve feared the most, the inevitable loss of you and Dad.  When Dad died suddenly 3 years ago, I felt gipped.   I didn’t get to take care of him.  I didn’t get to say goodbye.  I didn’t get to use all of my experience , to repay him for what he had done for me, to provide comfort and safety.  I thought I might die from the heartbreak.  I thought you might die from the heartbreak too.  Dad was our rock but here we are.  Two strong women.  I learned one of life’s great lessons when Dad died.  That love lives on.  I felt my capacity for love grow deeper as I internalized the memory of Dad. He WAS love. 

 You have been very generous in your acknowledgment that parts of me come from my biological parents. “I can’t take all the credit” you say.  It made me feel less like garbage to think that some of the good qualities you appreciate about me came from my roots. That I might actually be a person of value in my core instead of a piece of trash dressed up in a good upbringing.  I don’t know if I will ever know what attributes I get from Rob or Cathy but I’m certain of one thing; so much of who I am came from you.  The low self esteem I suffered as a child has now turned into confidence. I’m a good mom, a good therapist and, finally, I get to be a good wife.  I have a wonderful relationship with my two children.  They feel secure in my love for them.  When we fight, or I punish them, they know I still love them because I always make that clear.  I learned that from you. They can count on me to always be honest because I had that with you. They have space to grow and make mistakes but know that I am always here to support them.  That’s how I was raised.  In my office, I often quote sayings, not from therapy textbooks, but from you.  “My mom always says” is a refrain my clients have come to know and appreciate.  Your wisdom often serves as my compass.  And now, after years on my own, I am in a happy marriage.  I’m the kind of wife I watched you be to my father, a mix of traditional and liberated.  You attended to his needs but always had your own voice.  A real example of a 50/50 partnership.  A real example of a role model for me.  You will live on in me for the rest of my life, in everything I do. 

A year and a half ago, I announced that I would be writing a book. What a relief it’s been to tell the truth! And the more I do, the more my world becomes a happy place for me.  Yes, it’s true, my honesty has cost me some relationships.  There is always the fear that people will reject “the real me”.  You have encouraged me and told me to hurry up so you can read it. (And also want bragging rights, I’m sure, like any mom would).  You have even told me if I’m going to share my story I have to be honest.  I love that about you.  Parts of my story are painful.  Being given away hurt.  I couldn’t explain that to you as a child.  I couldn’t tell you what I needed.  But I know you would have given it to me if only I’d asked. You tried to help me.  You sat at the library every day on your lunch break looking for a picture of my birth mom when i needed to see her face.  You drove me to countless therapy sessions.  There was so much we didn’t know about being adopted.  No one told us, Mom.   We can’t go back and change that.  No matter how much we may want to now.  But I need you, and the world,  to know that I don’t blame you.  

All this talk about my adoption can’t be easy for you.  You’ve tried to understand and you’ve grown a lot.  You now realize it was naive to think that it would just go away with endless amounts of your love. You can squarely acknowledge that I have two sets of parents. They are real. You are real.  And now, finally, I can be real.  Thank you.  It means so much to me that I can do this while you’re still here to share it with me.  I hate that it upsets you, that my reality somehow shatters a part of yours.  One more complex complication of adoption.  I’m sorry for anytime we have fought.  Please know it’s just that I so desperately want you to understand, to know all of me before you leave, to acknowledge that my feelings are legitimate.   I want your permission and approval to do what life is asking of me. I want to know that honoring my truth isn’t a betrayal of you.  My loyalty to you is fierce, it’s forever.  I want you to feel secure knowing that nothing will ever change my love for you.  I will always be here for you, like you were for me.  I will always wish I wasn’t adopted, that I grew inside your heart AND your tummy.  Our stories and our lives will be inextricably intertwined for eternity.  

Love, Amy