And the Hope Never Dies
I tell myself not to expect anything. I know not to set myself up for disappointment, but still, it’s impossible to avoid.
For years, my mother’s day routine has been to go out and get myself all my spring annuals and just spend the day gardening my fool self off. Then, starting off from the years of being a single mom to one little boy with no job and because I am not cooking dinner on Mother’s Day , we would go out for ice cream for dinner. It’s a rather good tradition that allows me to not think about what I am in denial of. I was a mother long before I was actively a mother. I am a birthmother and Mother’s Day is a really hard holiday to observe when you are separated from your child.
This year, the weather ruined it for me. It was an still is horribly cold on the east coast and not a day for planting at all. On top of it, my lower back has been tweaking me all week and I didn’t need to be digging all day either. So even though I was presented with a spindly bean plant, a purple pansy and the kids’ homemade cards; my day was headed for disappointment. Rye had promised me that we could go for rocks. I am still obsessed with obtaining bluestone for my yard and now the waterfall in the pond ( still unfinished a year later), so the weather be damned, I pouted until he gave in and we headed out for the stone quarry. He’s been putting me off for two years, so he was not going to get away with it. To be truthful, I was going to end up crying if we didn’t leave exactly when we did. Mother’s Day is not a day for repose and deep thoughts. I have got to keep busy!
So we filled the Jeep up with stone. We stopped and grabbed some fat tadpoles from a pond. I got rocks. I got tadpoles. I was content. Plus, even though he was working that day, the teen announced that he would take me for ice cream for dinner. Cute how the tables have turned and he could now pony up for mom. .. even though it was still going to be ice cream! He didn’t get off early enough , so off to sushi we went and hoped to catch up with him. And later on, since it was too late for the little ones, he went and brought back a whole bunch of ice cream fixings . So I sat with my three kids and we had the traditional ice cream feast.
Three Kids; Not Four
No matter how lovely the day, no matter how sweet they try, I am still fully conscious that one child is missing. If that’s not enough, I say something to Tristan about “his brother” meaning Garin, and he asks “Which one?” Of course, Scarlett must chime in and bring up Max and how she wishes he was there, she wishes he would visit. And yeah, so they proceed to have a conversation about how it’s so weird that they have this brother who is not really a brother but he is.
I try my best to not freak out on them, but how can I even think to tell them that they cannot discuss their feelings on my account? Of course, they have a right to talk about their feelings too. I can’t be selfish, but I am trying so hard not to go there myself. and now, we are sitting around discussing it. We all miss Max. We all feel his absence. And we all wish he was there with us.
I end up trying to keep the pain out of my voice and say “Well, Scarlett, that’s just another thing we can all blame on adoption!”
And I don’t want to make my kids angry of bitter, but they might as well know that this perfect win-win scenario is what is leaving the hole at our table. I certainly never imagined that Mother’s Day would feel like this, but it does.
I hate that I really really want a phone call. I wish I had just one more mother’s day card. I surprised myself by leaping to my phone when it made one of its endless chirps alerting me to something on Facebook, but it was because I had that hope that he had messaged me. He didn’t.
It sometimes feels wrong to want that. To hope for it. To expect it. After all, what right to I have? I didn’t raise him. I didn’t kiss his boo boos. I didn’t buy his new school shoes. I can’t help but to imagine huim calling his other mother today. Or taking her out to dinner and I don’t want him to stop doing that. I left him with strangers for 17 years, gave them all my responsibilities and all my joys, and now I want a mother’s day card?
But I do. I can’t help it, but I do. Just one card.. one time.. one call….on mother’s day in this life time. Not the whole day, not just for me, but just once.. because I am his mother, too.
I’m sorry. Mother’s Day is a toughie. All those beautiful children you have are also a reminder of the missing boy. Your lovely pirate. Dearest Claud sending you lots of love.
I’m sorry about Mother’s Day. My Mom and I have often disussed how hard reunion would be with someone younger. It is how we make peace with how much time we have lost. He is young and you are amazing, he will get there. Weather finally breaks tomorrow, flowers this weekend.
The weather has been a toughy, but it is soon to get better. I’m sorry Mother’s Day was difficult. I can hear the pain in your words.
i luvs ya. & what was said above, “he is young and you are amazing”.
(& seriously, it sounds like garin was marvelous. that is def. worth celebrating. it has been a tough year for both of you.)
Oh Claud, I can’t imagine how heartbreaking that would be. I can’t remember if you like or despise online “hugs,” but that’s all I have for ya. *hugs* (pleasedon’thitme)
I’m right there with you ~ waiting. Still checking the mailbox yet again today ~ hoping for mail that was delayed or lost. But I know there is none. When does the waiting & hoping & wanting end? I don’t think it ever will.
Susie
You took the words right out of my mouth…I hope and pray that you (and I) will one day get that call and card on Mother’s Day…even if it is just once.
Claud, I love the way you describe the family ties and tugs between your 4 kids because we want what we want.
I don’t want to share the bitter. As confounded as I’ve been in trying to smooth the path of sibings, one thing I know. My raised kids know adoption sucks too.
I feel ya. I’m not too far from your neck of the woods, and this weather is horrible for attempting to keep busy with yard work. But, keep busy I still do.
I’m sorry that you didn’t get a phone call. I wish he would have.
Claudia I’m really sorry to hear that Max didn’t call you. I didn’t call my birthmother either…but you better believe I would have called her if she were ANYTHING like you. I don’t even think I have her current number anymore..she just changes them all the time. And when I call it’s always a crap shot if she will be sober enough to recognize me. If she’s high I get an earfull, and so this mothers day I decided to spare myself the agony. She has no address, so I couldn’t even send a card…
I have a hard time understanding adoptees who don’t know how lucky they are, who can’t see that what they have is something worth holding on to. Max and I are about the same age. We’re still young. He has plenty of time to grew and change his mindset. I’m sure he will, and the time will come when he calls you not only on mothers day, but all year round! I’m just sorry you had to live through another incomplete mothers day.
-Amanda
Taking advantage of your offer to freely muse.
This post is very touching to me. I read it knowing full well that you have a son you didn’t raise but I couldn’t help feel it as a sister who’s mom lost her son to early death.
The things you yearn for on MDay are the things I know she yearns for, but didn’t get. I’m one of her other children who knows, thinks and feels how she suffers these days, all days.
I wonder, can there be some peace for you knowing that it could be your son on the phone? There could be a card? That it’s not impossible? Perhaps you think of this already.
I would like to say one more thing about being the child of a parent who’s lost another child. It’s hard. Clearly you do all you can to be unselfish when it comes to the kids that are present, but we know anyway. We know that we can never be or do enough to take away the pain. That this person, who we may love and miss ourselves, holds a power to change the way things were, the way things should be, just by their very absence.
I guess I felt compelled to say this here because this loss for my mom, for our family, for myself is by far more painful than anything related to my own circumstance of being adopted has been.
I’m sorry it’s this way for you and your kids too.
We know that we can never be or do enough to take away the pain. That this person, who we may love and miss ourselves, holds a power to change the way things were, the way things should be, just by their very absence.
Holy crap on this comment by Campell. I talk about collateral damage alot on my blog but this shows it in a new way.
Our surrendered children feel they werent good enough to be kept;. Our kept children feel they werent good enough to take away the moms pain? WTF are we doing to our children? Why does ANYONE condone this legalized form of child abuse? Why dont the professionals realize when they destory the mother and child bond they damage the entire family constellation for that mother and child? Why dont we tell those relinquishing mothers that surrendering your child MAY help your child but it MAY also hurt all future children you bear?
Imagine if there was brutal honesty in adoption (eff with that PAL stuff).
Ahhh….shared grief…that is a lot of Mother’s Day for hmmm…the percentage of mothers who lost children to adoption. A percentage we’ll apparently never know since adoptive parents are still posting comments at firstmotherforum about how they won’t fill in the correct boxes about their children (adopted).
Keeping busy is the answer, but, boy, the card that doesn’t arrive, the call that doesn’t come is the one that hurts like hell.
Weirdly enough though I had a really really terrible week building up to Sunday, the glorious MOTHER’S DAY, the day itself for me was all right. I spent my tears on Wednesday and Thursday.
I am so sorry for your loss and pain. I was one of those people that had no idea how damaging and devastating adoption was, but reading your blog and other similar blogs has really opened my eyes. I can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like for you, but my heart goes out to you.
I’m 27 and this is the first year I called my nmom. Even though my adoptive parents nearly destroyed me, even though they have fun good times with my daughter and her adoptive mother without me.
The loyalty is deeper than I can describe. But it’s not only loyalty, because I have that fiercely for my nmom. It’s the fear that you could lose your adoptive parents, what if they crumple? What if they can’t handle you loving another mother? What if they break and you’re left with no one, aching for the tears of your parents.
And that has nothing to do with how adoptive parents behave.
We literally feel like whoever we are there for, whoever we call mother we can heal. And in reality, we can.
The feelings are just there. No one can change how deeply they love their kids and how they ache if their children are gone. Nor would I want them to.
I’m sorry he didn’t call.