The Buffalo Jump

Native American culture has always fascinated me. One of the many techniques used to hunt buffalo, was called a buffalo jump. Different tribes used different ways to accomplish the buffalo jump. Whichever technique was used, the result always came out the same for the buffalo in the end. The idea was to somehow stampede the buffalo towards the edge of, and over a cliff, where they would fall to their deaths. Sometimes the tribe used quite sophisticated techniques, such as, a type of natural holding pen with only one way in, and one way out, that way out being over the cliff. Some of the plains tribes, not having access to natural holding pens, and runs, would set fire to the prairie surrounding the buffalo. The fire then drove the buffalo toward the edge of the cliff, and finally, over. The buffalo, in the front of the herd, would try to stop, but the force of the herd would push them over. Those that followed, driven by fear and the will to survive, would blindly go over the cliff, because, well, what else were they going to do? In a buffalo’s mind, it was their only chance to survive, so realizing it or not, over they went. What choice did they really have?

I think I can understand what it must be like to be a buffalo in a stampeding herd headed over a cliff. It’s how I felt that week prior to making “the call”. I was caught up in a herd of stampeding emotions. It was fear, apprehension, uncertainty, but mostly, it was a need to survive some kind of threat I couldn’t even consciously acknowledge. Sometimes, jumping, head first, eyes closed, and over the edge of the cliff is the only way, especially when, or if, you don’t know what, exactly, you are doing to begin with, much less, why. When you smell smoke, and feel the heat, Sometimes, in life, you find you are the buffalo, when you would rather be the Indian.

I hadn’t said a word to anyone about what was going on inside of me in the days leading up to “Just doing it!” Heck, I had no idea I was even going to “just do it” myself. I had spent the majority of the past 15/16 years convincing myself that this man wanted nothing to do with me. Rejection was eminent in my mind. The stories my birth mother had told me led me to assume that my birth father was a jerk, who had taken advantage of her naivety. In such a case, wasn’t rejection inevitable, or, was it?

In my mind, confusion had set in. The research I was reading showed that men, whose children had been placed for adoption, felt the same types of feelings as birth mothers. From the stories of birth fathers I had read, they too grieved the loss of their child. Would my birth father be like that?

I had spent years feeling anger at, what I believed, was his denial of my existence, but how could he have denied my existence if he didn’t know I existed; didn’t know he had a daughter? My birth mother had told me he knew she was pregnant, but she never called him after my birth to tell him he had a daughter. How could he know about me, his daughter, if she had never told him?

I contemplated, as to whether or not, all the men I knew, had they ever been in that position, would want to know they had a child? I came to the conclusion, though some might not be inclined to build a relationship, they would be curious, or, at the least open to giving medical history. Logically, I had to wonder why my birth father would be any different, so what was stopping me from finding out?

A friend of mine had been trying to convince me for years to contact my birth father. I had gotten the information to do so years earlier by hiring a sort of private investigator. A few weeks and $100 later, I had all I needed to find my birth father. I even called the phone number I had been given once just to see. See what I’m not sure. I hung up when I heard the answering machine pick up. I don’t even know what I would have done had a person answered. I just wanted to know if it was really, I don’t know, real?

Every time my friend would bring up finding my birth father, I would get this disconcerting feeling I couldn’t describe. I would tell my friend that I didn’t want to disrupt my birth fathers life. (Side note: Isn’t that another common statement made by adoptees, who are terrified of being rejected, or may feel guilty, for a number of different reasons I wont get into at the moment?) My friend would always end those discussions with, “You have a right to know.”, so why did I feel like I didn’t? Did I really feel like I had no right to know my birth father, or was I just, simply, afraid he might not want to know me? Was it both?

I’ll let you in on a little secret that I haven’t shared with many people. I had always, silently, hoped he would find me, and save me the trouble of someday having to find, and contact him. I would fantasize about bumping into him on the street some day. He didn’t even live in my state. Still, at times, I would wonder, while, maybe, attending a Cowboys football game, what if he was there? What if he was sitting just behind me a few rows up? What if I happened to be downtown for some reason, and passed him on the sidewalk? He could have been on vacation, or maybe he was in town for business. What if we saw each other, and just knew? It’s a nice fantasy, even if it is a bit unrealistic. Stranger things have happened. Wouldn’t it have been nice though?

I much prefer my fantasy of being found to the reality that I was going to have to be the one to do the finding. In my mind, I kept telling myself he knew, but what, really, did he know, especially if my birth mother had never told him when I was born, or, if I was male or female? It hadn’t crossed my mind that it might be a bit difficult for him to contact me, when he really might not know he had a daughter out there somewhere. I wonder why? Was I really so afraid of being rejected that I would concoct some unrealistic fantasy in my mind to protect myself? Was it just easier to be angry with him by telling myself he knew and had turned his back on me, Or was I afraid I might find out it wasn’t like that at all? What if he didn’t know? What if, I wondered, my birth mother hadn’t told me the truth, exactly? My head was spinning. What was real, and what wasn’t? Why couldn’t he have just found me, and saved me from all this frustration? Which was I really more afraid of, finding out everything I had believed for the past 15/16 years was not true, or that it was?

Apparently, my fantasy wasn’t going to become reality anytime soon, especially if the man didn’t even know he had a daughter. Along with my curious nature comes a bit of an impatient nature, which leads us to another part of my nature, that of, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. Can you feel the heat intensifying? I could. I heard the rumble of the hooves coming towards me. I smelled the smoke, even though I still could not see the fire. Fear was in the air, and I was overtaken by, and caught up in the middle of a stampede of emotional turmoil I could not control or stop.

With the heat of the fire intensifying, and the edge of the cliff getting closer, my emotions were like the little ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from here to there, being hit and thrown back in to the game to hit more bells, bumpers, and the like. Still yet, I had no idea what all these emotions were, or why I was feeling them. I just was. Something was happening inside me, something I didn’t understand, and it scared me. I had moved from the “what’s going on here?” of my weekend with my birth mother, to a desperate need to know, but know what, I wasn’t exactly sure. I just wanted to know.

As the old Nike slogan goes, “Just do it!” Those were the words that kept screaming through my mind as I tried to convince myself to just dial that phone number one more time, and not hang up. “Just do it! Just do it! Just do it!” Those three, little words, screaming through my mind, were really beginning to get to me. I smelled the smoke. I felt the flames from the fire burning my heels. I was terrified, and there was only one thing to do, so I just did it. I jumped, head first, eyes closed, and over the edge of the cliff. What else could I do? I was the buffalo. I made the call, and there was no turning back. There was nothing else to do but pray, and wait for the: oh, my God, would he call me back?!!!!!

 

Part 1: The Call

It was August 19th, 2005 that I finally built up the courage to make that fateful phone call. Who would have ever believed one, little, phone call could be such a traumatic, life altering, and eye opening event that would completely turn my life upside-down, and inside out. I remember that day like it was yesterday, the fear, the unexplainable feelings inside, and the self-doubt. It took me three tries before I finally found the courage to keep from hanging up the phone after I dialed the number, and on the third try I finally asked the receptionist if I could speak to him. Who, you ask, is “him”? He was the man I believed to be my biological father, otherwise known in the world of adoption, as my birthfather.

I had spent the previous week in emotional turmoil. What exactly triggered all this, I couldn’t quite pin point at the time. I had been reunited with my birthmother for almost 15/16 years. I had just spent a long weekend, a “Girls Get-Away”, as we were calling it, with my birthmother and all the females in her family. It was a nice weekend, which I enjoyed. It was something about that weekend, something about my birthmother’s dramatic, as Oprah would call it, “Ah, ha” moment, after she and I had a brief conversation about my birthfather, that began to eat at me inside. Apparently, and according to my sister and cousin, whatever it was my birthmother and I had discussed, had, somehow, “changed her life”, and miraculously, “erased all those years of self-doubt and shame” or something like that. My birthmother claimed that she had, not only been relieved of a heavy burden, but her self-esteem had been miraculously restored, thanks to whatever it was I had said to her.

Apparently, everyone was witness to my birthmother’s epiphany and tear filled revelation but me. I never realized it before, and honestly didn’t connect it at the time, as to the fact that my birthmother’s dramatic, emotional revelations and confessions, always seemed to occur in front of an unsuspecting audience of sympathetic family, usually caught off guard by the coming from out of nowhere, for no foreseeable reason, emotional outpouring, minus one thing; the other main character, me. I never seemed to be in the right place at just the right time in regards to my birthmother, starting with my conception and subsequent birth.

When my cousin asked me what I had said to my birthmother. All I could say was, “I have absolutely no idea.” It was the truth. I never had any idea when it came to my birthmother’s moodiness. I usually just felt sorry for her birthmother pain, or guilty, like it was all somehow my fault. This time was different. This time I felt angry and confused. Don’t get me wrong; if I had indeed said something that helped my birthmother, I was happy for her. I was glad I had said whatever it was.

Considering the conversation with my birthmother was about my birthfather, and she had responded in her usual apathetic manner, it all seemed a bit strange and very suspicious. I can’t explain why, but I think I felt threatened in some way.

I don’t recall how my birthfather had even come up in conversation. She had asked me a question about something I had found out about his family. Other than that, the conversation lasted only about 5 minutes. Other than asking the question, she hadn’t commented on anything I had told her. My last remark, of the conversation, was as to how I felt that because he had turned his back on me, which is what I believed at the time and what my birthmother had, basically, told me, that I felt he didn’t deserve to know me, (Side note: Isn’t that a typical statement of an adoptee, experiencing feelings of anger and loss, but doesn’t know it?) Something was wrong with this picture. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t help myself, and my curious nature began to take over.

When my cousin, next, thanked me for whatever I had said to my birthmother to cause such a transformation, I became even more alert to the strangeness of it all. I couldn’t think of anything I had said to my birthmother that would have relieved her of any burden she carried, much less miraculously restore her fragile self esteem. My cousin’s “thanks” was the first in several “thanks” to come from birth family, both maternal and paternal, for things I had done that were quite unintentional, on my part, and seemed, to me, to be strange things to be getting thanked for, when whatever I had done, or said, really had nothing to do with helping my birthparents, much less, intended for their benefit. That and my reunion with my birth mother are another story; so before I get too far off track, back to my birthfather.

I can’t really explain it, but my birthmother’s performance, which I missed out on, and the conversations she and I had that weekend, seemed to just eat at me inside. I didn’t realize it at the time, but, through, writing this, I think that my birthmother’s revelation, due to whatever I had said, of having all her years of shame, guilt, pain, and wounds erased, as well as, her self-esteem restored, made me angry because, it seemed to me, she was really putting the blame for her problems and life, on my birthfather, my relinquishment, and thus Me. Thinking back, I think I had just reached my limit. Years of eggshell walking, and repressing my feelings was about over. I had no idea that the volcano inside was about to erupt, and, at the time, really had no idea as to why.

I spent the next week obsessed with thoughts of my birth parents, especially my birthfather. I couldn’t really put it altogether. Something just wasn’t right. I knew my birthmother had never told him when I was born, or that he had a daughter, but she said he knew that she had been pregnant and refused to take responsibility. Something just didn’t make sense. After all the years since we first met, it was finally sinking in. Something about her story was not adding up. It is my nature, when things do not make sense, to find out why. It’s a trait that has benefited me greatly at times, and gotten me in a bit of trouble at other times in my life. This time, it would do both.

I started reading all I could find about birthfathers. I just couldn’t get it out of my head, that most men, even If they didn’t want a relationship, would at least give, medical information, and be curious about their offspring. Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they, at least, want to know they had a child, a daughter? After reading all I could find in a day or two on birthfathers feelings etc., I convinced myself they would, so back to the phone call we go.

With my heart pounding so hard I thought it would jump out of my chest, I was put through. Oh my, the relief I felt, when my call went to his voice mail. I had spent hours, agonizing over, and trying to decide on just what I would say. How do you tell a man, you have never met, and who may or may not know you even exist, that he just might be your father? I can tell you for a fact that it is not an easy task. I sit here thinking about the cryptic message I left requesting he call me back. It went something like, “Hi. I am Shadow. I’m looking for so and so, who is the son of so and so, and was stationed in Texas in 1964.” I think I added, “I’m the daughter of someone you knew back then.” Along with my phone number and the best time to reach me. I hung up the phone in a state of numbness, which I would equate to being shell-shocked. OH, my God, what had I just done, and why?

 

I missed something…

Reading a blog about a family adopting from Ethiopia and meeting their daughter and “their” daughters “birth parents” and now waiting to go pick her up.

And on the side of their blog they have listed the 10 top reasons to adopt from Ethiopia with number 1 reason – 4.3 Million ORPHANS.

I must have missed something – something big enough to completely change the definition of such a specific term – when did the world decided that you could be an ORPHAN and STILL HAVE TWO LIVING PARENTS?  Has anyone told WEBSTERS DICTIONARY?

Either that or they are fine with NOT adopting an orphan but still think the number 1 reason anyone else should adopt from Ethiopia is to adopt one of the 4.3 Million Orphans.

I’m confused…sigh…

 

 

Camps and labels…have had enough of the attitudes

The 2000 US Census shows that there are over 2 Million adopted children living at home with their parents with the vast majority of them being under 18 which means they were born after the Baby Scoop Era - mid 40′s to the mid 70′s.  Estimates for the Baby Scoop Era is that there are 6 Million of us, granted some will have died but still, there are literally millions and millions of us living in the USA.

Given the sheer number of adoptees one would think it would be hard to define what the typical adoptee would look like, but looking at the picture painted by the adoption agencies about the prospective adoptive parents, the following assumptions could be made that we would all have taken advantage of the superior advantages our mothers (and fathers perhaps) were promised when we were placed.   

As children…we would all

• have perfect parents;
• perfect family;
• perfect siblings;
• be healthy having parents who could afford health care;
• be world travelers and grew up loving our vacations at the cottage on the lake.

As adults…we would all

• be college or university graduates or have gone further than just one degree;
• all hold white-collar jobs versus blue-collar;
• be married to individuals who also hold white-collar jobs;
• have the perfect family that includes 2.5 children, a home that is paid for;
• have swimming pools and fancy cars.

But come on folks – reality is reality…

• Some adoptees may have that perfect family and perfect life;
• Some won’t have that perfect life but a completely happy life;
• Some won’t have a perfect or completely happy life but they will still be content;
• Some will have an okay life and not be content with the status quo;
• Some will be physically healthy, some will not;
• Some will have mental illness that challenges their lives, some will find the way to live with their mental illness, some will just get by;
• Some will be or were abused by their adoptive parents;
• Some will have problems with their siblings or other family members, some will not;
• Some will have issues with the laws regarding their rights to their records of who they were born to be, some will not;
• Some will want to meet their family, some will not;
• Some will feel abandoned and flawed in varying degrees, some will not;
• Some will face feelings of insecuritity of different degrees from being an adoptee, some will not;
• Some will face challenges from being adopted from another country, race, language and culture all different degrees, some will not;
• Some will face challenges of living as one race at home and their race outside in varying degrees, some will not at all;
• Some will forever feel the loss that can come with being an adoptee, some never do, some only for a short time;
• Some will challenge how the adoption industry practiced or still practices, some will not;

So given just the few examples that do not even begin to take into account the realities faced by many adoptees that go far deeper or are multiples of those listed above – why is it so very easy to label an adoptee as either/or OR place them in one of two camps?

Because to many people and especially adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents, we are either a HAPPY ADOPTEE or an ANGRY ADOPTEE - why is that?  Can it really be that simple? 

 

I will always be an adoptee…

You can ‘white-wash it’…you can tell me to ‘get over it’…you can tell me about other adoptees who have not let it impact their lives…you can even ask me if I am happy…but lets just understand one thing…

Being an adoptee is for life.  It never goes away.  If I live to be 99, I will still be an adoptee…my thoughts…you all need to ‘get over it’ and ‘just accept it’ it’s the reality that was chosen for us when we were placed and adopted.  Accept or deny – your choice – your path – your life.

Just a few small examples of how it invades my life and will never go away…

I take my mom out to do some errands and at one stop she introduces me to ‘Jane’ and adds the inevitable, she’s an adoptee from Korea…mmm great mom – I needed to know that about someone I will never meet again…thanks for bringing that up, I needed to remember that I am adopted, and look another special chosen child.

I am going to a family thing and know I will watch all my ‘relatives’ who look and act like bios, and will not see myself mirrored on any of their faces, or in their mannerisms and personalities.  I will look at my sister and see and feel nothing, because she is not like me, and not like anyone else either, but we also have no connected feelings to each other.  I am again reminded that I am an adoptee, while at the same time glad I am adopted, because I would not wish to be related to my sister by blood.

I wake up each morning knowing if I had been a bio, that although I would be sick that knowledge could have prevented me from becoming disabled.  That daily thought reminds me that I am an adoptee who was severed once and for all from my biology.

I cannot allow myself to be blunt about failings of family members simply because of that unfailing loyalty towards those who chose to take me in.  While at the same time I hear bios freely talk about their families and wish just once, I could break through that armour that mutes me, silences me, reminds me of the debt I owe that can never be repaid.  That armour that reminds me that I am an adoptee.

That each new person I meet when with my family, sizes me up and looks at my family and then instantly struggles to find some similarities to comment on, when except for the race we share, there is none.   My status as an adoptee is outed and brought forward once again, each time for life.

And online it is brought home time after time, day in and day out, through comments on forums and blogs from all sides.  Being an adoptee we are compared, analyzed, questioned, and then labeled.  I read comments about the parent’s child is 5 year olds and loves being adopted and is happy and well-adjusted or how Suzie now 9 is just fine with being adopted.  I read from adult adoptees such a wide array of emotions, from staunch supporters of adoption to those who wish the word had never been spoken.  I see adoptees who are just peeking through their childhood feelings to find feelings that suddenly they cannot understand and are confused but still defiant about how being adopted is good.  I see adoptive parents tune out adult adoptees cautions with defensive words about their life and isn’t it great and that they would not choose a different way to form their families, but of course they battled with infertility and medical treatments before they chose adoption. 

People one and all wake up and shut up, and please just listen, I want to shout – adoption at the heart begins with a loss that never ends, not something to be dismissed and denied or ridiculed.  Writing comments like – “I know 2 adoptees who are just fine” is just plain stupid – do you know how many adoptees live in this world?  Millions upon millions and we are not all the same and unless you ticked the preference box on your adoption form to obtain a blank slate baby or child who will forever deny natural feelings then just stop. right. there.  No one is the same, each story will be different, we are unique to each other, and unique to our families and only the label adoptee creates the link that is our destiny. 

Wake up Adoptive Parents and listen to the words that may, just may, be your child’s own words.  Those words may not happen at 5, 10, 15, or 30 but guaranteed each will process their status as an adoptee and all that incompasses in one form or another and most likely for life…listen now and be part of the process or keep your ears firmly closed and deny, deny, and deny, and watch as your child now fully grown slowly changes and the closeness disappears - but perhaps you won’t notice or if you do, choose to deny - that the words you heard from adult adoptees could have helped but you wouldn’t hear.

 

Boxes and boxes…

Boxes…I have many boxes in my life, I collect boxes that grace the shelves and tables in my home and boxes inside of me - boxes, many, many, boxes.

 

One of the boxes inside of me is reserved for my family and still inside of that box are other boxes – ones filled with the people who have caused me and/or continue to cause me pain.  I cannot escape those inside the boxes always, but when they are not in my physical presence I can make sure the lids of those boxes are firmly shut and do not enter my space.

 

Another box is my maternal family and yet again there are boxes inside that box of those who do not and will not acknowledge my presence and wish I had never surfaced.  Like the boxes within my family box their lids are firmly shut but sometimes they still escape and enter my space, my peace of mind.  Why have I not learned to close their lids as securely as the ones contained within my families box?  Is it because I wage a war of acceptance of their callous dismissal of me the ‘mistake‘ the symbol of their mothers fall from grace?

 

Another box is my paternal family box and it is filled with many boxes, boxes that stay firmly closed except one box, the box that contains the man who denied he was my father then and now.  His box opens when I least expect it and it catches me unaware when I am at my most vulnerable.  I struggle with the thoughts that I am like him but know I too have denied reality at times, and cringe when I consider I could be just like him.  I makes me strive to face my life and my actions and be better than he.  Perhaps it is a good thing he escapes his box to remind me not to act like him.

 

I have another box of friends I love that is going through the transformation of my other boxes, the addition of new boxes that I am sealing up tight now, boxes of those who were my friends when things were normal.  They drifted off, one by one, bit by bit, they disappeared once I got sick.  They are gone and now belong closed tightly in their box within my box of friends.

 

The world shrinks around me but those within my heart that are free and not contained a box within a box are those I cherish most dear.  Being adopted has given me the lifelong ability to compartmentalize and neatly remove those who could cause me harm…I doubt bios learn that lesson so early in life.