my house of mirrors

adoption loss and reunion have caused a major fracture of my inner personality. I thing I choose to live in this house of mirrors in order to cope with daily life, keeping pain and sadness  packed away in neat little boxes until it is appropriate to open them and tend to who ever is looking back in the reflections of my past present and future. The mirror can be a friend or an enemy but they are reflections of me. all different yet all the same.They all contain a glimmer of hope and a desire to someday meld together into one complete person. until that time I will tend to them with the care and compassion that they never had. Slowly and gently leading them through the house of mirrors that is my mind.                                                                                                                                                                         These are the people I see as I walk through the maze of reflections looking back at me.

Mae- she is the strong silent girl. Mae is Portuguese for mom. She knows her role in her family is that of nurturer. Cheerleader, confidant, nurse, mother and wife. although not always happy with the wife role she accepts that after 22 years not much is going to change. so she makes the best of it. she is not happy but she is content. Her deepest desire is to find a place to fit in to the lives of her stolen children

Diablo Mal- (angry devil) She is the young girl that lost her children to the adoption machine. She has sudden burst of anger. is very hard to contain. speaks her mind often to a fault.She lacks self control. is extremely impulsive.her rage fuels her desire to fight for the underdog every chance she gets.She wants so badly to confront those who took her children and to make them pay for the damage they inflicted on them.

Gemini- Gem is the intellectual side . Shes smart. sees the world in black and white. thinks with her head not her heart. never lets emotions control common sense. She keeps the others in line with facts.

and finally there is Destiny. She holds all of the sadness, despair guilt and emptiness of the others. She lives in a world of grey skys and helplessness. carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and is the most common reflection in the mirror. she fights daily just to maintain . She just wants to know why.

so how has adoption affected my life? it has shattered my heart and soul . taught me to build walls of mistrust,  doubt and self hatred that very few can break through. and in the years to come the pieces of me may be repaired. but the scars of my shattered reflections will always be there looking back at me.



just the facts mam..sons vs daughters

I want to preface this entry by saying that I have always loved and missed both of my twins equally. but this entry is about the loss and reunion of my daughter.

On a daily basis I am reminded how we have to treasure every minute of togetherness we have with our reunited children. I never took being with her or my grandchildren for granted. I was thrilled to be an over night grandma. for the first time i was whole. none of the pieces were missing any more. after all isn't that the way the media represents reunion ? we all live happily ever after right ? oh how wrong I was. I had begun my self work. I was coming to terms with my new self and my loss that had never been grieved. I wouldn't say I was happy. but i was approaching contentment.then out of nowhere I was hit by something that I never saw coming. SILENCE.. it was as if she had disappeared. no warning, no slow backing off, just gone as quickly as she appeared. All communication stopped. And instantly I blamed myself. What had I done this time? I replayed every mental tape stored in my mind. looked at all the pictures we had taken. and could find nothing .then I got angry. right or wrong I was full of rage. How dare she do this to me. After all she is the one who started all of this. was it her way of getting even with me ? you left me now I get to leave you . That anger still surfaces occasionally. but it is now directed towards adoption in general and not at her . But I think I am seeing a clear view of how things are different for sons and daughters.

from the very beginning they differed on how and what to tell me. My son sat down and wrote me a 5 page letter regarding his entire life..the good and the bad. and trust me it was bad. stories of neglect, substance abuse by a-rents, homelessness. no detail was omitted. He thought I would want to know. ( i did but chapters would have been better than the entire story at once) i was not ready for the truth.my daughter on the other hand was furious when she found out that i knew everything that had happened to them. she wanted to protect my feelings.

at our first face to face meeting. my son pulled out a note book and wanted an instant family tree, with names ages, medical info. He wanted facts not feelings. My daughter on the other hand wanted pictures. who did she look like. where did we live. what led up to our loss. She was searching for emotional data. The following day my son left for Alaska. He had more questions but would email me later. just the facts mam. my daughter and i spent the next 3 days visiting for hours at a time. we spent time at the beach with my new grand babies. talked about how much we were alike. we were or so I thought connecting on an emotional level. After a sad good bye I returned to my home 1300 miles away feeling all was good in my soul. Looking back I think that maybe my next step began the downfall of our relationship. Feeling that I wanted more and thinking that they did too I made a decision to relocate back to my home town to give us some time to get to know each other. If i could change anything this would be it.

my son was happy to have me close by but moved very slow. he made it very clear that although he was happy that I was there , this was not going to interfere with his day to day life. My daughter was totally different, She wanted the mom she never had. The kind that loved unconditionally, didn't judge, and would be supportive and listen. all the things amom wasn't. and that's exactly what she got. I gave her a clear view of what she should have had, what she missed out on. Looking back I'm sure this made her feel anger and resentment towards me. after all she had raised her two children alone with no support from anyone. why couldn't you ? And i beat myself up with the same question.

I guess the moral to this fractured fairy tale is that in my case my son looks at things on a more intellectual level. he analyzes facts. I'm sure he feels something its just buried under the layers of "its not that big a deal" where as my daughter sees and feels the loss more on a surface level.

At present my son and I communicate on a limited basis via email and social websites. I choose not to involve him in what ever it is that has put a wedge between my daughter and I. though he wasn't even aware there was a problem until she refused to see me during a recent visit. As for my daughter and I, the silence on her part continues. I pray every day that , that will soon change.  I keep sending notes of encouragement and will continue to do so unless she tells me to stop.

reunion killed me...

                                                   today was "one of those days" you know them. the days you want to run away or you pray its all a nightmare and any minute I'm going to wake up and it was all just a dream. Its days like this that i flip through my play list and try to find a song that can adjust my attitude. some days its Ozzy, and other days its Tim Mcgraw. all depends on the mood.Ive given up trying to figure out what type of music describes me. because like me it just doesn't make sense.

this is the song that inspired me today. and before you think i have totally lost it. No it isn't a song about suicide. its about killing the old me and reinventing the new and improved me.

the reason I say reunion killed "me" is because basically it did. 18 months ago if I was asked to describe myself I would have said..wife..mother of 2..community activist. high school sports booster mom. girls soccer coach. The picture of a perfect mom. It all looked good on paper. besides nobody knew what was hiding in the shadows. That is until that day when i got the call that killed me.

I was no longer who I appeared to be. the simplest of questions now caused my head to spin. simple things like how many children do you have ?  now had to have well thought out answers.  my life rapidly went from very relaxed and simple to emotional and complex. The old me was dead and the new me had emerged. a bit beaten and battered but hopefully fixable.

whats hiding behind the rage ?

I often find myself wondering why I feel so guilty about the conditions that my lost children had to endure growing up, after all none of this is my fault right ? I didn't choose the people who adopted my children. I didn't neglect my children, I was not the substance abusers. they were. my only part in all of this was being a vulnerable young mom with no support and no options.  So why am i so consumed with rage and guilt ?

The moment I heard the truth about my children's adoption experience my maternal instincts kicked into over drive. I think every mom possesses the need to protect their young. We fight for what is ours, and at that moment that's exactly what i wanted to do. I remember plotting and planning what i would do to make sure they felt my rage and fury. How dare they steal my babies and treat them this way. they will pay for what they did.

So what stopped me from acting on this rage ? why didn't I fight for them ? I am thinking it is because the rage is what keeps me going. I owe it to them to be angry . that holding the rage shows that I love them. what mother could not be angry over this. and if the rage goes away all that remains is the sadness and loss. I had  been denied to feel sad because I was not allowed to grieve. after I lost my children it was as if they never existed, they were never spoken of again . I survived my own private hell for 28 yrs. I built a protective wall around my heart in order to not feel that kind of pain ever again and I fear that if I take down the layer of rage, the walls will come tumbling down leaving my shattered heart in ruins.

it was the best of times it was the worse of times

It was the best of times it was the worse of times. Truer word have never been spoken.
That day my daughter called me should have been the happiest day in my life. and really it was. I was thrilled. My heart was whole again right ? yes it was, for about 24 hrs. I had spoken to my daughter and her twin brother. neither had any hard feelings, or so they said. I slept that night with a peace i had not had in a very long time. the only thing on my mind was how and when to tell my raised children about their brother and sister. yes it would be tough but not insurmountable right ? had I only known that night that this was going to be the simplest task compared to the bomb I would awaken to the next morning.

as i grabbed my morning coffee and my laptop i was so excited to check my email for the promised pictures of my daughters children and any other items that may have been sent overnight. because of course this was after all the best of times just as they were played out on t.v. right ? oh how wrong I was. mixed in among the pictures of my children and grandchildren was a letter that I received from my son that would forever shatter the myth that adoption was the most selfless loving thing a mom could do. and that my children's lives were full of loving moments , happy times, and unconditional love. Because after all I had been told over and over that they deserved better than i could offer. and if i truly loved them I would do the right thing.
                                                                                                                                                                         Enter the worse of times...

Did my children get the big house, private schools, trips to Disney world all those things that I had been told I could never possibly give them ? Absolutely not.. what they did get was a totally dysfunctional family wrought with substance abuse, allegations of child neglect and periods of homelessness. This was the better life ? I think not, and now less than 24 hours into reunion I am thrown into the abyss of guilt, rage and despair. My God what had I done ?  I must have read that letter 20 times that day and it is still in my mail box along with every other communication I have received since then. yes there were good things in that letter also, and I am very proud of the accomplishments of my children in spite of what happened. but every day since then has been a struggle for self forgiveness. The rage boils to the surface and i see and hear the damage done to my children and myself. I know that with time,and support from an amazing group of friends that I am not alone in this  journey and that eventually I will return to the best of times.

my journey has begun

So this is my first entry. and although I'm not sure when or where it will end. I do know that I will be wiser and stronger for having the courage to walk through the fire.

The details of the loss of my three children plays out like a lifetime movie. so in a vain attempt to minimize the drama I will explain it in simple terms. 1980 a young naive 19 year old mom in love with an alcoholic and struggling to raise an 4 month old child finds herself pregnant again. (yes same dad) this time with twins. abandoned by her family for returning to the man who disappeared just before the birth of our son. The words " you make your bed you lie in it " will ring in my ears forever. as you can probably figure out dad disappeared again three days after our twins were born. That was the last i ever saw of him. September 1981 enter the baby thief disguised as a friend that only wanted to "help" Alone and desperate I did not see that this so called friend was setting me up for the biggest loss of my life. two months and numerous documented false claims of neglect later I agreed to voluntary foster care placement.From that day on the brainwashing began. what can you offer these children ? they deserve a better chance at a good life. be selfless. If you truly loved them you would do the right thing. and the one that will haunt me forever .. "we have a loving mom and dad that are willing to adopt all three so they will never be apart " Confused, abandoned and given no other options I finally waved the white flag of surrender. because of course these people new what was best. Oh did i forget to mention that my children were adopted by friends of my "friend" who was going to help me get through this.  December 23rd 1981 would be the last time I would see my babies. That is until April 7th 2009 the day my world would once again come crashing down. and the reason I decided to share the joy, heartache, rage and pain that accompany reunion.