Adoption, it’s complicated…
Adoption is complicated, reunion is extra complicated.
I am an adoptee, and a stepmom. I am of and from blended families. Find my story of opening my adoption as a 16 year old with boundless hope and love in my heart in the link at the bottom. Adoptions with Love has been with me every crucial moment of my life- from my birth and adoption, to reunions with both of my birth parents, to the full circle moment they became one of Once Loved’s first clients.
My recent trip to the East Coast was a nostalgic, openhearted experience. I visited my childhood home, and walked around Newton Center which is somehow now fancy. I stayed with my birthmom Peggy, and got a strong dose of loving and mothering that was much needed. I had my “first date” with my grandmother, and talked about family history, legacy, grief, and love while holding hands. Dennis joined, and we attended the beautiful wedding shower that my birth family threw. We are all simply family now. We’ve been blended longer than we were apart. Our bonds and love are unbreakable and permanent.
I unexpectedly met 3 more birth-Aunts on my late Birth-father Chris’ side. He was the youngest of 9, 6 sisters, and two brothers. With my beautiful, protective cousin Bethany, her mom Michelle, and my fiance Dennis by my side, I met Donna, Lisa, and Laurie. I look like them, so much like them. Bethany has my eyes, her mother does too. they all marveled how the top of my face looks just like Chris. Connecting with this side of my adoption triad is complicated because of how Chris treated me while he was alive.
Chris struggled with severe bipolar disorder. Raised in a strict Catholic family, he wrestled with twin inhibitors guilt and shame. When Peggy and Chris started dating the summer between high school and college, his boundless energy was so hard to keep up with that she eventually broke up with him. When Peggy got pregnant, Chris agreed to be supportive of her choice to give me up for adoption, but told her he could never tell his family. God love him, he signed on that dotted line. When I was born, Chris spiraled into depression. He came to the hospital to hold me, told Peggy he would be back the next day, and never came back. A year after my birth and adoption, he asked Peggy to speak to his father and to tell him everything as he could not recall details. My grandfather lovingly claimed me as his granddaughter, and told Peggy that he was proud of her choices and how strong she had been. Still, the secret persisted with certain siblings knowing about me, and most remaining in the dark.
Adoptions with Love helped me locate Chris my Junior year of college. My brother Adam came with me for the first meeting at a restaurant in Faneuil Hall in Boston. He helped keep the conversation going, as it was difficult to know what to say to each other. A few months later, my parents, Chris, his wife Lisa, and their twin boy and girl (my half siblings) came out to Block Island for lunch on the beach. The young twins played as we got to know Chris and Lisa. After that point things started to change. Chris told me that he couldn’t tell most of his family about me, that he and I would keep our relationship small. I didn’t hear from him for a couple of years until he called out of the blue because he was visiting his sister in Tiburon and wanted to take me to lunch in San Francisco. My Aunt Michelle and I connected right away and continued to meet while she lived in the Bay Area.
Michelle and I couldn’t quite figure out why Chris would want to keep me a secret and not introduce me to the family, so she spoke to him to ask him to bring me in. His reaction was volatile, swift, and abusive. He reactively called and berated me, yelling that I was going to ruin his family. It was awful. Michelle would periodically call me to say that he was “almost ready” to bring me in and tell his kids about me, but I had already put a wall up and lost interest. I didn’t want or need anything from him. It took me many years, and lots of support to realize that his blatant rejection of me had everything to do with his shortcomings, and mental illness, and nothing to do with my unlovability. My loving dad Dan, a man of few words said “f*ck that guy” when I called him crying. He was right, I had the best dad in the world and didn’t need anything from Chris.
Chris died suddenly shortly before Christmas in 2019. He was hit by a car and killed while out for a walk on a stormy December morning around 6am. A nurse coming off of her shift simply did not see him in the storm, and he was gone at 52. Somehow I always thought that we would have time to repair, that I could put it off to protect myself. Death is so final, so permanent. His family were not the ones to tell me, my aunt Kate on Peggy’s side found out about his death in a company newsletter as she and Chris had once worked for the same company. There was major disagreement between his siblings with what to “do about me” and so I found out from Peggy. I was the secret that Chris took to the grave. I navigated the complex path of grieving a biological father who I barely got to know without the closure of burying him and grieving with family. I read his obituary and was shocked to see reference to his affiliation with the Trump and the MAGA movement as one of his life’s great achievements. It further reinforced our polar differences, and my difficulty seeing him in myself.
In the four years since Chris’ death, I’ve been able to slowly meet family members and learn about the man he was. It helps to hear the good stories about him, his family loved him. I was introduced to my half sister Lauren, and my cousin Bethany has become as close as a sister. In many ways, my relationship with him in death is better than it could have been when he was alive. I do believe with all of my heart that relationships extend past someone’s life, and I keep his memory alive in my heart, and in my features. Meeting me has brought a bit of Chris back to his sisters.
Over brunch, Lisa asked me pointedly “do you forgive Christopher?” It took me a moment to respond, I wanted to be thoughtful and get the words right.
I told her “I know that Chris did the best he could by me given his limitations, that does not however mean that was nearly good enough for me. I have been treated like this family’s dirty little secret since I met him. I do think that him introducing me to Michelle was his way of ensuring a lasting connection to the family, a sort of lifeline, and I’m grateful for that. I believe in forgiveness, but in this case it is not so simple. Forgiveness must be earned, it necessitates acknowledgement of the hurt that was caused. No one is entitled to forgiveness simply because they ask for it. Also, I did not find out about his death from your family. I deserved to be treated like a person, not a problem. Moving forward, I expect to be treated with respect and kindness. Adoption is incredibly sensitive, and thankfully I have great support. No person should be treated the way that this family has treated me, so I will expect you to do better if you would like a relationship with me.”
It’s complicated. I’m so glad that I have writing to help me process this. My words on this page are my truth, my soul laid bare, my story. I’ve experienced both poles of how reunion can go- the best and worst case scenarios. My joy is tempered and balanced by grief, and my adoption story has space for both. I am lucky to be able to help create community around blended families. We all need support, we need each other.
