The Search and Reunion Box.

I was noticing that my whole outlook on life changes as the weather gets nicer. I did a couple of run/walks this weekend to gear up for the two day, 29 mile Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Boston on May 19th and 20th. It felt great to be outside in the sun! Unfortunately, I didn’t think the sun was strong enough to warrant sun screen and I am a little burnt here and there.

It is hard to believe that I am coming up on a year in reunion tomorrow. I first met my paternal uncle and his wife on April 19th and I met B. on April 24th of last year. I remember how crazy the whole thing seemed.

I just went and dragged out my search and reunion box from the shelf in the basement. It is a big carton for a ream of W. B. Mason 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Sturdy and about half full of files, newspaper clippings and pictures. I keep all the correspondence in a big basket in my office. I love my search and reunion box. I still feel a thrill when I look in it. It’s my history!

I couldn’t remember how long it took from start to the actual meeting. It is so weird to read old emails and see my frustration with the whole situation. 

My first contact with the agency was on early September of 2005 and I  finally met B. on April 24th of 2006. In the grand scheme of things, seven months isn’t a long time unless you are an adoptee waiting while your biological mother decides if she wants to meet you or not. I was so freaking pissed at the time! I remember thinking I went through all this emotional upheaval and she isn’t sure she wants to meet me? Isn’t sure?

I remember how insulted I was. It wasn’t like I was asking her for a kidney or anything. I just wanted to meet her.

I am smiling reading her first letter to me after the reunion. We were so awkward with each other…

Tomorrow, I will go back through the search and reunion box and try to get all the letters in order. It brings so many memories… 

Where do you keep your Search and Reunion stuff? And your letters? Do you look at the contents often or just now and then?

The Nicest Time.

I had the nicest lunch with my birthmother and her sister.

We always meet at a restaurant north of Boston that has a huge neon cactus sign and plastic cows on the lawn. The restaurant is grim at best. It reminds me of Las Vegas and Frank, Dean and Sammy. The place smells of stale liquor, meat and organized crime. I imagine this restaurant was the place to go back in the sixties. I wonder if anyone ever planned a mob hit here.

I look at the diners around us and notice a couple to our left. They are only having martinis and laughing. To our right are three adults and a young girl. This young girl is exhausting to watch. All over the place. She finally bangs her head on the seat back and there is a dramatic pause. The adults all hold their breath. She winds up and starts to wail. The adults all scramble. I am truly impressed at how manipulative and diabolical this little girl is. Cake? Do you want cake? Cake will make you feel better. Have the cake. Well done, little girl!

We settle in for our two hour lunch and laugh about how we certainly don’t come here for the food. My birthmother orders a salad. Her sister orders a fish sandwich. I order turkey tips because they seem somewhat healthy.

We talk and talk some more. For some reason, I keep looking at my birthmother’s hands. They seem strange to me. My birthmother’s sister points out that she has never seen me really eat. Everytime we have lunch together, I take most of it home. I think that I am so full of my thoughts, I just have no appetite.

We finish our lunch and exchange our gifts in the parking lot. They are headed off shopping and I am headed home. They invite me to go shopping but I need to get back. I hug my birthmother and hug her again.

Sunday morning, I call her for our “de-briefing”. It has become habit that we talk for an hour on the phone after each meeting. She tells me that the only time she feels strange is when she watches me walk towards her. It reminds her so much of my birthfather.

We make plans for my visit to her house on Thursday. It will not be a big event like the last visit. I want to see what a normal day is like for her. I want to see her sitting at the dining room table that she laughingly calls her office. Does she have a favorite mug? Tea or coffee? She has already told me that when no one is around, she will drive to the store and buy a bag of potato chips to eat while watching cheesey Lifetime Women’s Channel movies.

A guilty pleasure that makes me smile.

The Visit.

I headed north at 8:00 a.m. to visit my birth mother and her family after stopping to grab a cup of coffee for the trip. I brought along a big stack of CDs I had burned but never labeled. I figured the two hour trip would give me plenty of time to try to figure out what the heck was on them.

None of the songs seemed to match my mood so I tuned into a local classical station and turned the volume way down. Just some quiet music that would allow me to think. The lady’s voice on the station sounds so cultured and reminds me of the holidays. I think to myself if I ever met the lady on the radio, she would be nice. I am reminded of the time I went to a holiday concert at Symphony Hall and was particularly moved by For Unto Us a Child Is Born from Handel’s Messiah. I remember sitting there and feeling like the heavens had opened up and all my troubles had dropped away for one bright, clear, and incredible moment. I remember thinking that if I died right then and there, it would be just fine. I still choke up when I hear it. I wonder if my birth mother likes classical music.

I head through the city and realize how much I love the Back Bay area of Boston during this season. I love the stately townhouses lining the streets and the people dressed in elegant clothing rushing off to dinner, museums and holiday parties. I remember back to the Christmas eve when I met friends at the Four Seasons Hotel for drinks and became fascinated with an older couple who were having a quiet drink in front of the roaring fireplace. They were surrounded by bags from wonderful stores that I will never shop in. Shiny bags from Hermes, Louis and Tiffany’s. The couple were both elegantly dressed in dark clothing and she had the most beautiful gray blonde hair pulled back simply away from her face. They were just striking and I remember wanting to know them. I wanted to know what they were discussing and what she said that made him chuckle and pull her close.

As I passed out of the city, the buildings start to fall away behind me. I pass through miles of woods and fields with only an occasional toll booth to break things up. The plan was I would meet my birth mother at a restaurant parking lot so I could follow her to her house.

I pulled into the lot a few minutes late and my eyes went right to her car. We wave and she motions for me to follow. I smile as we drive down the road a mile and take a left onto a dirt road. I could have found the house easily but she wanted to meet me. The street sign flashes by and I recognize the street name I have been sending the letters to for about a year. We travel down the bumpy dirt road for a couple of miles and pull into the yard of her neat little house… it didn’t dawn on me till later that she was joking when she kept telling me to “look both ways” as we crossed back and forth between her house and her daughter’s house across the dirt road.

It was a bit off a culture shock for me, I’ll admit. My birth mother and her husband have four cows, a horse and (up until yesterday!) three pigs and forty turkeys. They have dogs, barn cats, and all sorts of other animals. This is rural Maine, Yankee magazine-type stuff. I love to try new things. I am ready, willing and able so bring it on! Wood chopping? Sure. Build a new barn? Let me at it!

We walked over to her daughter’s house where I met what seemed like a thousand people. I got to meet her husband and her oldest son. I met nieces, nephews, grand-kids, and friends. Trust me, the entire extended family was there.

When I first walked in someone offered me a beer, and without thinking I said “it was a little early for me to be drinking beer”. Unfortunately, as I said it I noticed that all the men were already drinking beer so I decided I should try to fit in. Let me tell you, beer in the morning is disgusting. I ended pretty much just holding it and dumping some down the sink every now and then when no one was looking.

It seemed like everyone in my birth mother’s family is in the medical field or a firefighter. They were very nice people and made me feel very welcome. They were very curious about me and every so often I would catch someone staring at me. My birth mother would drag me away now and then to give me a break from the spotlight. We walked over to her house and she showed me that she had framed the pictures of me that her sister had taken and put them in her living room and her dining room. We sat there and chatted for a while which was nice. She said her kids would like to have me come back with less people around so they can get to know me.

Then we headed back and I got to go with her husband and brother-in-law to the slaughter house to pick up the turkeys. Her husband was a great guy. He had a great sense of humor and couldn’t have been nicer. I was thrilled because I wasn’t sure how he felt about all this. I helped load the forty turkeys in the truck and then we headed back. These turkeys weighed between 30 lbs and 55 lbs.

They put on this huge spread! Ham, beer, homemade applesauce, beer, baked beans and some more beer. It was just fantastic. They had a big bonfire outside and a couple of the guys wandered off to “discharge a firearm”. I have seen guns but never heard one go off so I jumped about forty feet when I heard the bang echoing through the trees. Fortunately, the next activity was more in my realm and we went to hit golf balls over the horse pens. Thankfully, I hit well so I didn’t feel like a big loser.

About 4:00 p.m., I decided it was time to head out. I figured they were all being on their best behavior and it would give them time to let loose and talk about me.

My birth mother’s sister pulled me aside on my way out to tell me that all these people were in awe of me because my birthmother had changed so much since the reunion. She was always considered very un-emotional, tough and had a little bit of an edge. They have never seen her so happy. That makes me feel good but I feel terrible when I drive off and see my birth mother’s sad face fading in the rearview mirror. I stop and get out to give her another hug.

I called my birth mother yesterday to thank her for the nice day. She told me that it was a wonderful feeling for her to be “finally sitting at the table with all four of my children”. It makes me think about a birth mother’s loss and I wonder if the feelings are similar to a mother who has had a child die? Did she sit at the table all those years thinking of me? Wondering if I was alive or dead? And not being able to share her thoughts with anyone? It must have been crushing. She told me that it hurt her heart when I had to leave to go back. I know exactly what she means…I want to be with her but I have to go back to my life. I have friends, family, career and responsibilities.

I remember back to my ride home, coming around a corner and seeing the twinkling lights of Boston stretched out before me. The view of the city from the north takes my breath away. I remember the soft classical music playing and thinking how I am a part of both my biological and adoptive families, but in an odd way I am really not a part of either. I am not my parent’s biological child and I am not a part of my birth mother’s family.

At the very least, I still have my wonderful elegant couple, my song and my city. They are mine.