by Cindi Pearce (Fri Feb 12, 2010)
My friend Lucy gave up a child for adoption 35 years ago.
She didn't talk about it very much, although she and I talked about everything
else incessantly. This was the one area that I intuited was off limits, and I
let it alone. I didn't ask my usual 10,000 questions in rapid fire sequence. I
figured she would talk about it, when and if she wanted to.
That day came. She had been struggling. Menopause, family
issues and the realization that she had been traveling on the river ‘De Nial'
for more than three decades, made her think it was time to address the void in
her life: Where was her child? Was he okay?
She hadn't wanted to give him up. She had changed her mind, in
fact, but her attorney laughed in her face and told her she couldn't renege on
the agreement. It's a painful story. She was a teenager, bending to the will of
her parents and to the cadre of adults who were ‘in charge' and knew what was
'best for her.'
So 35 years later, she hired a company and was ready to
shell out a large sum of money for them to locate her son.
She called me on a Monday morning and asked what I thought
about her marching into the local health department and asking to see a birth
certificate for a male child born on this specific date, at this specific time,
in this specific location with this specific doctor in attendance. I said go
for it, but told her that the records would probably be sealed, and she would
probably have a tough time getting this information.
An hour later she called me. There was only one male child
born that day. She was given everything that she needed: The actual birth
certificate, the child's name, his parents' names and their address. She and I
were dumbfounded. How was this possible? We had both anticipated that it would
take months, weeks, maybe even years to uncover this information.
She gave me her biological son's name. I fired up my computer
and paid $39.95 to get the ‘goods' on him. Bingo! He'd had (we painfully joked)
the good sense to rack up a criminal record and a mug shot.
He was a dead ringer for his biological parents.
We stared in disbelief at his picture.
He lived five miles from her. He had practically been her
neighbor all this time.
Information started pouring in from the most unlikely
sources. Her son was a heroin addict and in dire straits.
She'd only had one glimpse of him in the delivery room, 35
years ago. They wouldn't let her hold him, but she was allowed to touch his
fingers. She distinctly remembers his infant fingers: Long and tapered. She
wants to see them again.
As I think about the possible outcome of this ‘reunion,' I
pray for her and her long-lost child. I hope that she isn't opening a Pandora's
Box which she won't be able to close. She is fully aware of the repercussions
of what she's doing. She knows she is not going off to meet a healthy,
successful, well-adjusted 35-year-old.
‘He's my child,' she told me, ‘and he's in trouble.'
My friends, who aren't mothers, and who are stringently
logical and pragmatic, think Lucy has gone loco and will live to regret her
decision.
If I were in her situation, I would probably do exactly as
she has done, plunging headfirst into the danger zone, because that's what moms
do, although I recognize the potential grief that she may be facing and the
possibility that she is about to turn her family's life, as they know it,
upside down and inside out.
So I'm waiting ...
... with fingers crossed.
Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 3 here.
