Life Twice Given

When I was about 5 years old, I had a recurring dream where everyone I knew and loved stood with me in a radiant field with one lone tree full of leaves covered in the hint of fall. Just yards away, poised resplendently in front of us, was a brilliantly colored hot air balloon. I remember thinking it was so magnificent and alluring. I could feel the warm breeze blow through my wispy blonde hair and closed my eyes as I turned to the sun. I was happy. I wanted to share this blissful moment with those around me, but when I opened my eyes, I was alone in the field. All of those cherished people had climbed into the basket of the balloon which was ascending to the sky too fast for me to catch. I stood there with panic filling my entire soul and cried as I was powerless to stop it. Then I would awake again to reality, but the panic would not subside and I would scream until my mom came to calm me and lay in my bed while I held the ties of her robe so she couldn’t leave. There was no significant event that I can remember that stopped these dreams from happening, but they just stopped one day. Far too young to understand why this nightmare would be occurring every night while I slept, I completely forgot about it until the memory came back to me as a young adult. I realized then, that my exploration of identity, though normal, might be a little bit more unique.

I always knew I was adopted. My parents talked with me about it numerous times, divulging it in increments that I could comprehend. It was never anything that struck me as peculiar or exceptional in any way; or maybe my mind was still too immature to truly grasp the concept of it. Regardless of my underdeveloped mind, thinking back, I truly don’t remember ever feeling that I was any different than any other child growing up with a mom and a dad. I was a shy and inquisitive little girl that viewed the world with wonderment and mystery. My life seemed consistent and resembled the lives of childhood friends… and the beautiful thing is, it was! I grew up a predominantly joyful little girl with a lifestyle congruent to any child with a loving family. I felt secure and knew without question that my parents loved me. When I refer to my parents, I am speaking of my adoptive parents, as in my eyes, they were my mom and dad despite who brought me into this world because they guided me through it and taught me the fundamentals of surviving in it. They gave me two siblings to make sure that I had a couple of best friends for the rest of my life and always illustrated the importance of family through dedicated time and boundless opportunities for new experiences to grow as individuals. I was given every opportunity in life that a parent hopes to give their children, so if my biological mother harbored that wish for me when she released me to an unknown destiny, I can tell her that her wish came true.

There were, no doubt, times when I would mention being adopted and my peers would acknowledge this plain truth with disillusionment, but I would let it go as just being part of my mystery. I do remember at some point in my grade school years struggling to find the meaning of being adopted, but I never experienced an overwhelming grief, anger, or abandonment like conventional stereotypes portray as I came to understand it. Every time I probed for more knowledge about it, an explanation was always provided to me. I learned over the years that my biological mother was young, just finishing high school, and that my father abruptly joined the army once he learned of my conception. It was revealed that my birth mother had a very difficult time giving me up which reassured my awareness of her wanting me to have a better life than she could give me. I was told I resemble her; that I have her eyes. What’s strange about my eyes is, even though I didn’t know what she looked like, they were always an element of wonder and admiration to others. My whole life, even strangers would stop to remark on their beauty and captivating uniqueness of greens and yellows. The attention to the peculiarity of my eyes I took in with modesty but cherished and embraced it too because it always evoked the thought, “I got them from my mom”. They became the one intrinsic part of me that connected me to her.

In December of 1996, when I was 19 years old, my adoptive mother was killed in a tragic car accident and turned my life about as upside down as it could be. I began to question deeply if I wanted to find my biological mother. During that time, my dad handed me a thick, red folder that contained all the knowledge available to me about my adoption. My life in a folder. Most of it was legal documents and correspondence between the adoption agency or County that revealed nothing advantageous. I didn’t even know her name. What I did find was one sheet of paper, typed up on a typewriter that shared some basic information about my mother and her family… and it had her Senior picture. I DID look like her! I was astonished at how I could look so much like someone I had never met. It was really a surreal awareness that a picture and small amount of information gave me. Profound even. I decided I would take that small amount of knowledge I now had and see if I could attain anything more based on it. It was exciting, but I held to myself that if I hit a dead end in my exploration, then that is what was meant to be.

I knew I was born in 1977 in Forest Lake MN, so putting my apprehension aside and letting my always inquisitive spirit lead me, I took her Senior picture to the high school there and checked out every yearbook from the library for the years she would have attended. I found a quiet table to sit at as I paged through them looking for a face with a name that would match my picture. There was nothing. No picture that was even comparable. The librarian told me there were a few teachers from “back then” that still taught there and allowed me to visit their classrooms since it was after school hours. One said I looked familiar and another recognized her picture, but could not remember her name, so my dead end came quickly and I drew my own conclusion simply from the era in which I was born. It was the end of an era that embodied a shame culture that was haunted with a prejudice towards teen pregnancy, or any child born out of wedlock. Therefore, as it was commonplace societal conduct, my biological mother, presumably, was from elsewhere and sent to MN to carry out the pregnancy without bringing shame to the family. I admit my disappointment merely because I always thought it would be gratifying to know my history, the lineage of my ancestry, and with it, the nature of the society, and culture of the region. To know what accomplishments my bloodline had offered the world and the impact of their existence. At the very least, a medical history to have knowledge of what I may have to endure in the future, but I had to accept the fact that my mystery would remain mine and I was accepting of that.

4 years later, I had my first child. Honestly, I had always said that I would not have children of my own, but rather, adopt to pay back the life that I was given, but the universe had a different plan for me once again. The moment I knew I was carrying a child, I loved him. I was connected to him without even meeting him yet and it was infinite. When I became pregnant with my second, it was a transitional time in my life that left me a little selfishly anxious to be bringing another child into the world. However, I felt the same eternal attachment to her and knew that I would withstand whatever I had to in order get through the apprehension I had towards the unknown future path that laid in front of me.

I thought often about my biological Mother through the personal growth that comes with having children and I wondered how she could go through with giving up that connection. How could a mother leave behind a child? My dream of the hot air balloon as a little girl came back to me. I realized in a flash the uneasiness that I had been holding with me my entire life and never recognized it for what it was. I could no longer deny that I possessed an ingrained apprehension of losing loved ones, a need to preserve connection to others, an avoidance of confrontation, and amend all that seems damaged. I have a rooted, but gentle suspicion to every situation and to those around me, but it’s a suspicion grounded in conjecture and query to be not only conscious of demeanour, but also mindful of the reality that everyone has a past, a culture, and an individual perception that I know nothing about. I question everything and analyze things vigorously… But of course I do, I have mysteries to solve! All in all, I truly don’t think those are bad characteristics to have developed from being an adoptee. In fact, it was a blessing to have to understand such a complex idea as I grew up because it instilled in me a gratefulness for life and connection that most will never comprehend in the same manner with a fully open mind and heart. Being an adoptee most definitely molded who I was, but it wasn’t despairing nor a provoking question to my faith in existence, it was who I was and it was my responsibility to make me the best version of myself just like it was everyone else’s obligation to do the same for themselves.

When I look at my reflection in the mirror, I am both the same person and yet, an all together transformed individual as the day I was born. My biological mother gave me sight, but my parents gave me vision. She gave me hearing, but they taught me the importance of listening. My mother gave me all the organic capabilities to feel, but my adoptive parents gave me the awareness to understand them and empathize with others. I learned the love of a mother from my adoptive mom through her encouragement, indoctrination of morale and confidence, and every Band-Aid ever applied to the knees my biological mom gave me to scrape. I emerged through the years with boundless appreciation for my biological mother, wherever she may be, for loving me enough to allow me to live my mystery. Relinquished in physical presence, but never in essence. A Life Twice Given.

“Being genetically related doesn’t make you family. Love, support, trust, sacrifice, honesty, protection, acceptance, security, compromise, gratitude, respect and loyalty are what make you family.” - Unknown