Lost Boys

I was out for a walk this morning and decided to go through the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood. I saw a very sad sight. There were two police cars there and a third was arriving on the scene. A well dressed woman was standing at the end of the driveway but there didn’t appear to have been a traffic accident or anything. And then I noticed something else. The police had a young boy – maybe 16 or 17 – handcuffed with his hands behind his back.

I will never forget the look on that kid’s face. It wasn’t fear, it was pain. His face looked like tragedy of the comedy/tragedy masks. He was trying very hard not to cry.

I wanted to go over but with now six policemen there I didn’t think there was any point.

The kid looked so incredulous and in so much pain that I wondered if the woman was his mother and she was throwing him out of the house. He was also well dressed and there was that look of disbelief. I moved along because I didn’t want to appear to be a voyeur but I thought about it a lot as I walked back home. My son’s adoptive parents threw him out of the house when he was about that age. In fact, he was still in that state when I found him. That’s probably why this scene had such an impact on me.

It also made me think of something else that happened this week. I was at an award ceremony and one of the writers who was receiving an award made it clear in his acceptance speech that he was a success in spite of, not because of, his father. Now this guy was getting an award for his body of work so he was no kid. Perhaps in his early or mid-fifties. And yet he still felt compelled to give the finger to the old man in a mighty public way. The wounds of childhood and adolescence run deep.

How important it is to tell our children that we believe in them.

I’ll be thinking about him for a while – that boy in the handcuffs at the end of a laneway in one of Canada’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.

I hope he is OK.

Peace

UM

So UM, what the hell have you been doing?

Wherein our interviewer asks UM a few questions…

Q:       So Um, tell us. What the hell have you been doing?

UM:   Clearly, not writing on this blog for one thing.

Q:       Why is that?

UM:   Good question. If you read my last posts, my Dad died . Actually, in the last year or so, my Dad, my uncle and two friends.

Q. Sorry to hear that. Is that the only reason?

UM. Well uh, I just felt tired. I just felt tired of the whole adoption thing. It seems to me sometimes that a competition is developing about who has been hurt the most by adoption. That makes me sad. You sometimes feel that there are so many forces at work your voice is like dropping a grain of sand in the ocean to try and stem the tide of misinformation. I think one of the saddest things about this is the fact that even though you may be part of the adoption triangle it is hard, maybe impossible, to walk in the other guy’s shoes. It makes me angry sometimes when adoptees start projecting stuff onto birth mothers.

I think maybe the deaths had something to do with it too. Too many people are burning daylight when they could have another person, who just happens to share their DNA and loves them, in their lives. Yet the thing that tore them apart in the first place continues to work its evil magic and keep them apart.

Q:        Don’t I remember you writing a post about getting tired?

UM:    Yes I did, the one about the geese flying in formation. About how the lead goose falls back to let someone else take the lead for a while. Maybe that’s what I’ve done. Not that I ever felt I was the lead. I am in awe sometimes of how often and how well other people write about adoption, birth moms and adoptees. How they keep fighting the fight. I am also in awe of the adoptive parents who get it and write about it. How wonderful it would be to be dealing with adoptive parents like them. There are some wonderful ones out here in the blogosphere.

Q:        Did you happen to catch “Find My Family” the other night?

UM:    Yes I did. I approached it with some trepidation but I was, for the most part, pleased with what I saw. I liked the name of the show for one thing. That’s pretty gutsy. I am sure the letters are pouring in to ABC saying how dare they call a birth family – family. In fact, I went on the ABC website just to see what people were saying. Most of the comments were pro from what I could see but there were a few – my child has a family or how dare you put this on TV and give my child ideas. Hmmmm. I saw the woman from the show on GMA this morning and I thought there was some reassuring back peddling going on. All that says to me is that even if the show isn’t perfect, those of us in favour of open records and raising awareness generally, not necessarily in that order, should write in and support it. I liked seeing a birth mother and father who accurately expressed what it feels like to have lost a child to adoption even though they went on to marry and have other kids. I liked what it showed about the adoptee and that the adoptive parents were welcoming. I thought meeting under the family tree was a little hokey but on the other hand they are re-enforcing the idea that this is your family. Not perfect but if ABC can withstand the pro-adoption backlash they are sure to get I think it will be a good thing. If it makes one adoptee not feel guilty for wanting to know – that is a great victory. If it makes one birth mother or birth father more convinced they have a right to know what happened to their child – that is wonderful. If it makes some adoptive parents accept that their child has two families – I’m all for that. Sure adoption reunions are complicated and don’t just involve running toward each other through a field of daisies – or up a tree to a hill. Sure they didn’t mention the fight for open records. And maybe doing all this in public isn’t ideal but I’d do it if I was hitting a brick wall and it was the only way to find my kid. It’s only the first show. I’m prepared to cut them a fair bit of slack.

Q:      Seems like you haven’t lost all your passion for the subject matter.

UM:   No I guess not. It’s hard to open the door just a little. Maybe that’s another reason.

Q:      Why don’t we wrap it up for now.

UM:   Can I just say one last thing?

Q:       Of Course.

UM:  Whenever I see a birth parent and a child hug each other for the first time I have the same reaction I do when I see a baby being born. Tears because it is so beautiful and wonderful. I will never ever forget the first time, my son, his father and I hugged each other.

Q:      Can we call to talk to you again?

UM : Absolutely. I appreciate you getting in touch with me.

UM’s Most Popular Post So Far

I thought it be interesting to see, since I hadn’t written for a while, which of my archived posts was getting the most on-going traffic since Unsigned Masterpiece began in July of 2008.

It is “Sorry for Any Inconvenience” posted October 20, 2008. Here it is:

Sorry for Any Inconveninece….

In my opinion, “Sorry for any inconvenience.” has to be one of the most insincere phrases in the English language, tossed off usually in a manner that leads you to believe the person, corporation, telephone company, cable provider or government service is anything but sorry.

In that vein here is an announcement from the government of my home province. For some reason, it makes me think about the CAS – that’s Children’s Aid Society – and asking them how they feel about issuing a few apologies.

Attorney General Chris Bentley says a proposed apology act for the province would help make the justice system more affordable and punctual.

The provincial government last week rolled out proposed legislation that would remove the risk of civil court liability for individuals and organizations that issue apologies.

The government said the new law would help victims’ recovery, improve accountability and transparency in the health-care sector, and aid the justice system by “fostering the resolution of civil disputes and shortening or avoiding litigation.”

Bentley said, “The goal of the legislation is to encourage sincere apologies — saying sorry for a mistake or wrongdoing is the right thing to do.”

So maybe I should call the CAS. Let’s see what would I ask them to apologize for. Maybe the fact that they knew at the time I had my son that there were no Catholic homes looking to adopt a child. Maybe for not telling me that they had a policy that said he could not be adopted by a family of another faith. And for not telling me that my son, therefore, would go straight to foster care. And that he sat for almost 10 months until finally a family showed up. Not the perfect family, just the first one.

Yes that might be a good place to start. They should apologize don’t you think.

After all, it’s not going to cost them anything.

Peace

UM

The Credit Crisis….

Where to start? Where to start?

There are many draft posts here on my good old Unsigned Masterpiece WordPress site.   Some about my son.  Some about my father, who died on January 7th.  Some about my father and my son who could be twins.   Some about how my father never really got to know my son because – well – because of all the stupid reasons that existed when my son was born.

During the month after my father died, every day mail arrived telling us that he was in debt to an extent none of us could have imagined.  As much as you are thinking; it is more than that.  Dealing with this crisis, adding up accounts, consulting with lawyers, wiped out the main event, the death of my father.  No one, not even my mother, (She swears and I believe her.) knew the extent of the problem.

How my father lived with this secret I do not know.  He was not well but I think in the end it killed him.  Time was running out.  Credit card companies who let him run up way more debt than a man of his income should ever have been permitted to run up were starting to cut him off.

January and most of February I wondered at times if I was going to have a stroke, a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.  I phoned my doctor’s office and said I either needed drugs or a long talk with her. (Regular readers, if there are any of you left out there, will know that she is a very wise woman.)

My family doctor is the one who would say “That’s abandonment talking,” when I told her things my son was writing to me in his emails.  And still not one to mince words, when I told her about my dad, she said, “That’s quite a betrayal.”  And that’s exactly how it felt.

She didn’t give me drugs of course.  I didn’t ask for them and even if I had she would have said no because she is a wise woman.  But she did tell me you need to grieve and that is where I am running into trouble.  I feel nothing. Angry.  I don’t know.  I see a picture of my father and I think – whatever.  How could you do this?

I said to my doctor that I thought pride kept my father from telling anyone what was going on.  She said, “It wasn’t pride, it was shame.”

Shame – that’s a familiar word.

Everyone else in my immediate family wants it to be a family secret.  After he died, we got many letters from cousins or kids I grew up with, even one from my son’s father, saying what a great and good guy he was.   The cousins all said he was their favourite uncle.  Everyone mentioned his great sense of humour.  He did have a wonderful sense of humour.  It’s true.  They all thought he was a hell of a great guy.   His best friend since the age of 12 was in tears.

But having been the subject of the last BIG FAMILY SECRET, I have no desire to go down that road again. So they are silent but I am talking.  Talking to my close friends about my own little version of the credit crunch, the greed of credit card companies who, realizing they had a money maker, encouraged him to get ever deeper into debt.

In his desk drawer, I found letter after letter from one credit card company saying “Now every day can be payday.” and enclosing cheques that would allow him to increase his debt to them, by paying off someone else.  At the end, I think he was borrowing from one to pay another and the day before he died it  was all starting to collapse around him like a house of cards.  He was not a big spender.  I think he just got into some trouble and then the interest and the silence did him in.

I feel sick to my stomach when I see a credit card bill now.  And I pay mine off every month!

I overreact in the bank when the very nice and friendly teller suggests I could put overdraft protect on my chequing  account “for free.”

“No,” I say in a voice that is way too loud.  “I don’t want that.”  And then I tell her about about my father.

My doctor says this is happening all over the place.  So many people, so over extended, owing money they cannot possibly pay back.

At some point you have to wonder who is responsible.  We all are responsible for our own lives but I think the people who held out the equivalent of a drink to an alcoholic in the form of every increasing credit limits unsupported by income deserve to take a large part of the blame.

Watch This Space

UM returns March 15th