April 10th is Always Mother’s Day to Me…

UM

It is now 26 years since I met my son on April 10th, 1987.  I have written and celebrated that day many times.  If you would like to read a couple of those posts that reflect on that day,  here they are. 2011 is complete with photographs.

2011, 2012.

Meeting my son  changed my life for the better. I still celebrate it even though for the last eight years things have not been going so well. For the last four years they haven’t been going period.  I have made a few attempts to reach out. I never wrote about them here because I don’t really believe in giving a blow by blow description of everything that’s going on.  Let’s just say, things remain the same.

I heard on the news today some one has decided  this is International Anti-Bullying Day. Perhaps you have seen the Wear Pink Campaign. It is rather ironic that it International Anti-Bullying Day should fall on April 10th because I feel that it was my son’s attempts to bully me (and his father) that put the  distance between us.  The last time he communicated with me, from what  I could tell, if there was going to be a relationship, my role in it  was supposed to be that of whipping girl.  When I  refused to play it, he tried to embarrass and hurt me.

He wrote to friends saying nasty things about me.  And then he went on Twitter. I said to my husband, I think I’m getting cyber-bullied by my own son.  Definitely not a trust inducing exercise.  I wrote about what happened here a few months later with some help from Eddie Money.

The events that I describe in that post  occurred right around this time of year. There was often trouble around anniversaries, like his birthday, with my son.  Of course I have some sympathy for that because I used to get  troubled around his birthday every year too until I figured it out.  Many people, adoptees and mothers, have written about the triggering anniversaries can cause so I won’t say any more about that here.

But I do want to say a bit more about mothers and bullying.  We don’t respond to it well.  I don’t know that many birth/first/natural mothers IRL, as they say, but I do know quite a few of them on line. Most of these women seem quite strong to me. I suspect most (all?) of them would say that they are strong women too. And, in the next breath they will admit, they can’t believe they were so stupid as to have lost their children to adoption.  There may not be a lot of guilt but there certainly is a lot of regret.  Where was all that strength then?  But back then, when we lost our children, we were the women/girls people told us we were. Most of us have vowed that we will never let something like that happen again.

Bullying can consists of one or more types of abuse – emotional, verbal, and physical. It typically involves subtle methods of coercion.  For most of us that coercion involved destroying our confidence in our ability to raise our own child. Most of us know now that was ridiculous. We weren’t lacking in ability or potential, we were lacking in support. And that is why, when someone, anyone, tries to tell us who we are, we don’t buy into it.

I think when an adoptee attempts to bully it often has its basis in growing up with the birth/first/natural mother myths that abound in adoption.  The myth that the adoptive family was always better than.  The original family lesser than. The myth that mothers are troubled or drug addicted or worse. When I first contacted my son, his adoptive father told him to be careful if that woman asks you for money.  It’s laughable but then really it’s not.  That kind of attitude enters your brain by osmosis.

But enough about bullying. Even though the irony of the juxtaposition of Anti-Bullying Day and our reunion day was too strange to ignore, I have strayed farther afield than I intended to do.

It’s the anniversary of meeting my son. I am remembering and smiling.  I remember the wonderful visit I had with him. It was at this time of year too. Ten years ago this week. I hope my son is doing well. I hope he is happy. I hope he has found someone who loves him and who he loves back.  And although we may remain apart, I think of him often. I hope he has found peace. I will always be grateful that we were able to meet.

Peace

UM

Randy Travis and me (and adoption)

UM

I am not a big fan of country music.  That makes it sound a bit like I don’t like it.  That’s not it, it’s just not usually my go to music.  Rock and Roll!!!

But there was a time that I listened to a lot of country music or to be more specific, a lot of Randy Travis.  The year I was looking for and found my son, there were two CD’s I played all the time, at home, in the car, everywhere. One was Randy Travis’ Storms of Life and the other was Famous Blue Raincoat, the songs of Leonard Cohen (See my page About the Name) as sung by Jennifer Warrens. I played both of them for my son’s father.  He thought Famous Blue Raincoat was beautiful.  He thought it was funny that I was listening to Randy. But I digress.

As far as I know, Jennifer Warrens is doing alright; Randy Travis is another story.  He was found, apparently, naked and drunk, on a highway. He seems to have fallen on troubled times.

Now I guess if you are a songwriter, it’s all material.  Maybe there will be a Storms of Life II.  But that is kind of flip and I really don’t want to be flip about Mr. Travis because he was there for me during a challenging time. I doubt that he will find his way to this blog but if he does I hope he will read and know his music meant a lot to me.  I still have his songs on my itouch.

Here’s the title track from Storms of Life.  I remember singing this in full voice while I was driving around the province, tracking down clues, looking for my son. It wasn’t my favourite song but you’ll get the idea. Particularly if you’ve been there.

Peace

UM

Oh NaBloPoMo. It’s time to say…

NaBloPoMo Last Day

adoption, reunion, reform, reality – we’re done!!

Oh NaBloPoMo, it’s time for us to part.  It’s been an interesting month.  We laughed, we cried.  Sometimes I cursed.  But it’s all over now.   It’s not you it’s me.  I think we should date other people.  And while I would like to remain friends, if we can, this will be our last meeting.

Why did I want to get to know you NaBloPoMo?  Well as I said on Day 1 I wanted to support The Declassified Adoptee and her Bloggers Taking Back Adoptember initiative (Yes, I said initiative. I used to work for the government.)

But supporting DCA just got me started. I did it for some other reasons too.

As a writer I know the more you write the better and so the idea of making this commitment to write everyday appealed to me.  I liked the writing, I liked the goal setting.  Yes I was worried about writing every day about my least favourite thing – adoption.  I jokingly left a comment on Adoptive Mom’s Margie’s blog that part of me thought I would write about adoption for every day for thirty days and then I would be writ out, spent, done.  No more adoption blogging.  Okay-I can hear the money changing hands out there as I type as to whether that will happen.  I am guessing that the odds are not in my favour.  But then Ha! they never were.

I had some other reasons.  October was the best month statistically speaking that Unsigned Masterpiece ever had.

Taking Back November!

This was due to the death of famous adoptee, Steve Jobs.  Who knew what an education about the long reaching effects of adoption his death would be to so many people.  I wanted to see if I could top October’s stats without Mr. Jobs (kind of like Apple.)  I am pleased to say we beat October. Yay!  By a few hundred hits so far.

I wanted to raise my profile a little, maybe pick up a few more followers. Check.

What did I get out of this that I didn’t expect?

I think my little typewriter is now a permanent fixture.  I really like my little typewriter.

I learned to do something technical in the linking area, that’s good.

I saw the benefits of going multi-platform.  I want to start another more general blog so that is good to know.

Like all journeys, like my trip on the the QM2, I got something out of it I didn’t expect.  Writing about adoption everyday seemed to make me calmer about it, more certain of all the things I believe about it.

So how do I assess my writing over the 30 days?  Some good, some ok, some so so.

I think these are my favs:

T is for Things Adoptive Parents Say
A is for All you need is …
F is for Feminists (or a letter to Gloria)

I think Ernest Hemingway said for every 100 pages he wrote there was one page of genius and 99 pages of garbage ( or words to that effect). I’ll accept three posts out thirty as not bad.

So long NaBloPoMo

In the midst of all this there was a crisis re my elderly mom that continues. Then in the midst that crisis my dog got sick. She started to limp and when it didn’t go away we took her in. Her hip was shot and there was a shadow on her bone that the vet worries may be cancer. The hip has now been repaired. The biopsy results should be back in a week or so.  Think positive thoughts.  The vet bill was $4000. The doggie – priceless. Unconditional love. More valuable than gold.

It was hard to keep blogging. I almost gave up.  MyBirthNameIsAllison saved me from quitting.  I was reminded of the joys of mutual support and for that I thank her.

I’m glad I kept going.

Thanks to all of you out there for following and welcome if you are new.  And thanks to old on line friends for reading along.  Congrats to the other NABloPoMoers.  Joy, you crack me up too.  I wish I could have read more of everybody. Thanks to Suz of WritingMyWrongs for guest posting.

Every now and then someone would apologize for not keeping up with their reading.  I would tell them not to worry. I was having trouble myself and I knew my husband (and biggest fan) was falling behind too.  All adoption everyday for 30 days is a lot.

Unsigned Masterpiece will be returning to its old schedule of publishing once a month around the twentieth – unless there is a second coming of Steve Jobs or some other comment-worthy adoption news.

Peace and so long NaBloPoMo 2011

UM

Love, Hope and Changing (the Adoption) World

Like people touched by adoption, we Canadians think a lot about defining our identity. We are sure we aren’t Americans and we believe in universal healthcare but past that sometimes it gets a little fuzzy.

We suffered a loss recently here in Canada. The person we lost was the leader of the opposition in parliament. He knew who we are as a country, he had no doubt. He had vision for how good we could be and he fought hard for that vision. He believed in us. He died on Monday.

I put some flowers in front of his house yesterday. It was a small Toronto house, a lot like my own. There was no security, although all the curtains were closed. The front porch was covered in flowers and there was a condolence book to sign.

People in Canada, regardless of their politics, believed him to be an ethical man. They also believed he sincerely cared about them and their lives.

So much did he care about us all that he wrote us a letter when he knew he wasn’t going to win his fight with cancer. It was to be released after his death.

The letter has struck a chord with everyone. Particularly the last paragraph. If you look closely at the sketch of him above the words of the last paragraph are written there. Within hours they had been inscribed on a poster which is available at very little cost. He said:

My friends,
Love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.
So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
And together we will change the world.

And that, of course, made me think about adoption. Sometimes there is a lot of anger. Sometimes there is a lot of fear. And while there may not be despair there is sometimes a lack of faith. A deficit of optimism. And that’s too bad.

I promised myself I would only post once a month but the events that I have described here coupled with what has been going on at First Mother Forum (link to the right) has made me think that even though I just posted on Sunday, the time to post this is now not in late September.

I guess this is an Unsigned Masterpiece special edition.

If those of you who aren’t from Canada want to know more about this man, google “Jack Layton” or “Jack Layton’s last letter” and you will see why we in Canada are so sad. We have lost someone special. Someone who wanted to help us all do and be better.

So let us all try to do a little better because he is right, love is better than anger.

Peace

UM

It’s about the journey people…

I have, over the last four weeks, been on a journey. I travelled to Paris and London and I travelled between North America and Europe by ship both ways. That’s fourteen days at sea.

We were aboard, my husband and myself, the Queen Mary II. And what a fine ship she is. It is an experience I think everyone should try and have at least once in their life. And not for the reasons you may think.

There were many wonderful things about being on board. The service was great, the food was wonderful and there were so many of the activities you wanted to try that it was difficult to decide. There were lectures, at least two a day, on many interesting topics.

We were, on the eastbound voyage, 2500 people, 4 dogs and 3 cats.

That is a lot of people (and pets) and yet it was never hard to find a quiet corner on this very large ship to read a book or just watch the ocean.

I found the trip by boat to be, not so much the luxurious experience they advertize although I could have made it that. Instead I found it to be a kind of spiritual journey. A chance to turn off the noise for awhile.

One night, not too long after leaving New York, the captain announced that at midnight we would be passing over the final resting place of the Titanic.

At first, I was kind of surprised they brought it up but once I got over my surprise, I knew I wanted to be out on deck at midnight. And I was.

It was a moving experience to be in the dark on an ocean liner passing over the black water at that spot, thinking about all those people and what happened almost a hundred years ago. Thinking about how your life can change in an instant.

I learned a lot of things on board the ship. Or maybe I was just reminded of things I already knew. Things like just being who you are, like remembering everyone doesn’t necessarily see the world the same way you do, like never judging a book by it’s cover when it comes to people because everybody has a story. And a lot of them are pretty interesting.

It wasn’t always calm weather either. One day we were just a notch below gale force winds. But the ship was solid and steady as it cut through the waves

I loved being out on the ocean, watching the ship’s wake trail all the way out to the horizon.
Watching the sun come up over the infinite expanse of water.

Where have you been? Where are you going? What is your place in the universe?

Just some things to think about … whenever you have the time.

Peace (and Happy Father’s Day)

UM