Now and Laters

For once, I am at a loss for words.

As most people who know me are aware, seven weeks before my 17th birthday, I gave up my first baby for adoption. Suffice it to say, I took a great deal of trouble to find her wonderful parents, I kept in touch with her over the years and we both moved on with the job of living. This was a task that, I think, was harder for me than her- but that is always the way of it with children.

When I first gave Rachael up, her parents lived in Campbell, CA. It never occurred to me they might move far away, as they had said they wanted to settle in the Bay Area. By the time Rachael was two, she was living in Long Beach. I was so angry at their departure, I couldn't put it into words. One of the things that made giving Rachael up livable was having her close enough to see her from time to time.

When Susan and Robert told me they were moving to Pittsburgh, PA, I cried for two days. It was like giving her up all over again.

Going to visit Rachael has always been challenging, largely because despite it being the good thing to do, I have never been able to convince myself that giving my child to others was the right thing to do. Having my kids didn't soften that feeling, either (although many people who had never experienced anything like this assured me it would.) I am always acutely aware of where the kids are when they are not with me. I am always aware that Rachael is very far away.

After twenty years of waiting, I finally got to spend some time with my first born daughter without her parents. It has left me with thoughts and feelings that I have difficulty expressing. There is no lexicon of language for something like this. Maybe that is why people make movies- so many things can only be expressed in pictures. Maybe it is the pictures in my head that I should describe. But which ones?

Then - I am lying in my hospital bed, with a large window to my right. Rachael is sleeping on me, in a sun beam. She is so small and the light makes her hair sparkle. I am, briefly, blissfully happy and all seems right with the world. All I want is to stay in that moment, with no one else there to remind me she is only mine for that moment. We are both content to lie together in the warm sunlight, breathing and dozing. I know we are in a bubble, and that very soon it will pop. I can hear the nurse coming to take her away and even though I ask her not to, she insists.

Now - I am lying in my king sized bed here at home, reading Harry Potter. The kids are in their room, pretending to be annoyed with one another. Rachael asks if she can come in and read with me. She lies across the foot of the bed and opens her enormous book. She asks if she can read some of it to me. As she reads, I think that her hair still has that little hint of red it had in our sunbeam. I think that the last time we spent time like this, all I wanted was for it not to end. Now I realize that a part of me is still in that day, stuck in that moment. I think how strange it is that she is old enough to describe how amazing it is that this book is so "maximalist". How strange to be alone with this person who is no longer a baby and how that day in the hospital was the last time she thought of me as "mother". I think it is wonderful that she is so much like Cameron and my father. I am so aware of what twenty years can mean. Just how deeply you can bury something if you really want to. Rachael keeps reading, she has no idea what flies through my mind. She is so happy with her book and the chance to share it. I dropped out of college, once, because I loved books like that. Loved reading them out loud to other people. Funny thing to pass on. Part of me wants the moment to last, the other wants the other shoe to drop because it is damn hard to keep all my parts together.

Then - Rachael is sitting on the living room couch of her home in Pittsburgh, PA. She is seven and a half. She doesn't look like me any more. We are visiting so she can meet her little brother (we haven't figured that part out quite yet). Rachael wants Cameron to sit with her and I have to show her how to hold him because three month old babies don't sit very well. She has him on her lap, and she is beaming. She isn't old enough to feel awkward about having half siblings. She wants to read a book to him and Cameron is happy to be read to. I am taking pictures of the two of them together, musing over how little they look alike. I wonder if they will ever have a true relationship with one another? I hope so but don't know how to make that happen, because these trips to Pittsburgh always hurt. For now, they are awfully cute together and Cameron loves the book.

Now - We are all sitting in a restaurant in Santa Cruz. James, Dirk and I are on one side of the table. Rachael sits across from us with Cameron, Una and Declan. Una insists on sitting next to Rachael. After years of Una hero worshiping Cameron, he has been usurped. Rachael can do no wrong in Una's eyes. Declan sits with Cameron (his hero) and the two of them play race car with the pepper shaker. We discuss the possibility of Cameron visiting Rachael at school for a couple of days this year. Una wedges in closer to her sister. Declan tries to drive the pepper car over Rachael's hand. They are siblings! They have all accepted one another without condition. It is almost hard to look at them, because this is exactly what I wanted for them all. I don't want to break it.

Now - Rachael, Dirk and I are talking about how Dirk and I answer the "how many kids do you have?" question. Dirk and I differ on this point. Dirk hasn't figured out how to answer that question because he has told so few people. I say there are "three people" and there are "four people". What determines the difference is quite complicated and depends on how much time/ desire I have to describe why my oldest isn't here and that I am indeed old enough to have a twenty year old daughter and that yes I was young when she was born and no...... More often than not, I say I have four children and leave it at that. Rachael smiles and says she is glad I say four. Her reaction is like a salve on a very old wound.

Then - There are too many people in my life. All of them want me to make them feel better. If I am having a bad day, I get a constant flow of "What's wrong?", "Are you OK?", "Are you sure everything is all right?"... I want to throw things at them and yell at them and tell them to fuck off. Of course I am not all right. No, there is no way that I am OK. I am so far from OK I don't know what it would feel like to be close to it. And there is nothing anyone can do, because I am giving my baby away and it does not matter that Susan and Robert are wonderful people. I am going to feel like shit about it for a long time and if that makes anyone uncomfortable too god damned bad because you couldn't feel a thousandth as horrible as I do and it is my right to feel bad. That is what I get. That is mine. I don't have to make you understand. I don't need to make you feel better. But... I wasn't brought up that way. I get up for old people on the bus. I say please and thank you all the time. I do not air my feelings because I am stoic and that is what I was taught to be. If I say I feel wretched and minuscule and invaded you will ask questions, and I will get uncomfortable because admitting weakness is not the British way. So I keep it in. Really I am fine. This is the best thing I could do. We will all be better off.

Now - I still find people want me to make them feel better. No one ever really wants to know what it was like to be me in 1987. Sometimes someone will ask me a question, awkwardly. They are always fearful of hearing, of knowing, what it was really like. Most people want to think that everything ended up great, with no sadness, no shame, no guilt. No regrets. So I let them think it. My life now is only because my life was. There is no possibility of change. Still, my sadness, my regret, my memories are mine. Maybe others can't hear it because this is what is supposed to be mine. This was the road I had to take to know how to hold on to my life now.

Then - Susan and Robert have their blue Ford Escort parked in front of my apartment. I hate that car. Before, I hated the way the stupid shift light would flash on at exactly the wrong time to do anything but drive 15 miles an hour. Now, it seems like Hades' chariot sent to take Persephone back to hell. Except it isn't. Persephone only went to the Underworld for three months of the year. Rachael is going to live with her... parents. Forever. Everyone wants me to put Rachael in her car seat. Why? I hope this isn't some kind of honor being bestowed upon me. It sure as hell better not be a reminder that I promised to go through with all of this. Some stupid ritual to help me "let go" and get "closure"? The back of the car is too tight for me to be comfortable and I have never done this before. I strap her in and she is ludicrously tiny in this huge car throne. We have crossed the line. Everyone is patient, but I know that they all want to get on with life, even if it is just a tiny voice in the back of their heads telling them so. Can anything I tell her now find a small space somewhere in her conscience so she can access it in the future? Just the feeling would be OK.

"I love you. I always will. I don't want you to go, but we have to do this. Don't forget. I love you."

Susan and Robert hug me good-bye. Susan is crying a bit. I can't handle it. They need to leave now. Right this moment I hate them and I am not sure that will ever change. Right now I hate everyone.

Then - Una and I are buying shoes together. She is seven, and she has "the gene". Aside from being beautiful, smart, funny and very put together, Una loves shoes. She loves shoes the way I love books. We are in Nordstrom, looking at racks of sale shoes when we realize that Una wears a woman's size four shoe!! She is beautiful, with enormous feet. True to form, Una starts trying on Ferragamo, and Prada, and even a pair of Jimmy Choos! "Oooooooh, Mommy! Look at these! They fit and they go with my jeans!" She's got it bad. On sale those shoes are two hundred dollars, and scattered on the rack like they are, they are the equivalent of the candy racks in the check out aisle. I tell her we are going to Target.

Now - Rachael and I are at Target. Looking at shoes. She has "the Gene". There is a huge rack of five dollar sale shoes, most of them dangerous in their alttitudinal potential. She is trying on a pair of turquoise, platform, slingback... stilts. If I were by myself, I would be a tad less judgmental about them, but there is a biological connection here that can not be denied, so I have an opinion about them. I limit my comment to "My God! You'll break you're ankle!". Una would get a sound "No way!". Rachael informs me her mother would hate them and shake her head in disapproval (knew there was a reason I liked Susan). They do look nice on her. And they are only five dollars... where do you think she got "the Gene" from?

Now - I am watching Rachael wind her way through airport security (she is wearing the turquoise stilts). Still just a little bit of red in her hair. Dirk is hanging on the partition that I guess is supposed to prevent shoe bombers from... whatever it is that shoe bombers do. I don't want her to go, but it seems right that she is leaving. I am so happy that she was here. She is all I could have hoped for. I see my Dad in her. My Mom, my Grandpa. Rachael is smart, and confident and herself. All I want for any of my kids is for them to be themselves. And maybe just enough of me to come home from time to time - to offset those good-bye's. They are awfully hard. I am surprised to realize I don't mind that I am not her "Mom". I haven't been for so long, I am used to that. It is clear that she is my daughter (she has my sharp tongue, god help her), but what am I? The term "birth mother" has always been distasteful to me. We have been jokingly using "Alternate Parental Unit". "Friend" is inadequate. I guess it is just, Adrienne. Hope it is enough, 'cause it is all I got.

This may seem like a long post. Lots of words. But there is no way I can put what flashes through my head into this. The pictures run by too fast, the feelings kick a bit too hard. It all leaves me a bit breathless. I start to write, and the pictures take over...