Identity

As my 41st (UGH! When did I get this old?) birthday approached, I found myself doing what I do most every year...thinking of my birth mother. What must have her day been like? She had just carried a child for nine months and went through an arduous labor knowing that she would not be keeping the child she was working so hard to give life.

I wonder each year if she thinks of me...
if she struggled to make the decision...
if she remembers that day...
if she held me...
if she cried...
if she is she has other children...
if she is even alive...

Until 13 years ago, I knew nothing of her. I had a grandiose idea of who she was, of course, as all adopted kids do. No one wants to think of her birth mother as anything but smart, beautiful, and successful. In my illusionary world, she was a doctor who married my birth father in the end, but could not keep me due to the demands of college, finances, parents. She couldn't possibly keep me and give me the life I deserved, so she named me Rebecca...her last act of parenthood...then selflessly gave me to another family who would love me and take care of me better than she could.

Yeah, right.

She was a 5'8", green-eyed, brown, wavy haired 19 year old with a mild form of cerebral palsy who had bounced from foster home to foster home (19 of them.) At age 12, she finally settled with a family who showed her compassion, affection, and love. She still craved acceptance. Needless to say, the fact that my birth mother had no idea who my birth father was isn't all that surprising.

My birth grandmother was a drunk who didn't know who my birth grandfather was. She married a different guy after she got pregnant with my birth mother, didn't care for herself during her pregnancy, gave birth to my birth-defected mother, and made her a ward of the state in 1947.
My birth great-grandmother gave up my birth grandmother in 1929. There was no great-grandfather lineage documented.

Who was I? Who am I?

To say that I was tortured by these revelations is an understatement. Doctor? Married to my birth father? Hardly. My idealistic picture was erased in the time it took to read the letter from Catholic Charities. In the middle of writing my master's thesis paper, I cried on the shoulder of my husband and my dear friend/master's-thesis-co-writer. My husband's first words after reading the letter through tears, "You broke this cycle. What a gift." But...who was I if I wasn't the daughter of a functional human being? What were my nationalities? Could I celebrate St. Patrick's Day with the rest of the Irish without faking it? Where did I get my height? My love of reading? My blue eyes? My singing voice?

Although there is a lot of baggage that goes along with being adopted (that few people in this country talk about or even acknowledge,) I have been most affected by my identity. Or lack of it. The one thing we adopted children can all agree upon (especially those of us born in the 1960s and 1970s whose records are sealed) is that we long to know who we are. Where did we come from? To whom do we belong?

This question has haunted me my whole life. Until this year, really. I don't remember the day it hit me, but I remember the feeling. Although I will always wonder, I no longer feel lost. I know to whom I belong. I belong to God. I belong to this wonderful family that I have created and that has been created for me. I belong in the amazing friendships I have cultivated. I belong in a classroom with 12 year olds.

I may never know the country from which my ancestors came. I may never know who my birth mother really is. But I do know where I fit on this planet for the first time in 41 years. I know where I am from. For that, I am grateful and blessed.

Oh, and from now on,
I'm going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day...
as a proud adopted-Irish person :)