Mother Unknown

Time moves so slow and minutes last,
like hours passing never fast.
The days roll on, months seem like years.
I lose the count of falling tears.
An endless cycle of seasons flow.
Questions continually unanswered grow.
It never ceases nor does it stop.
I'm bound by calendar and clock.
While prayers and dreams have only grown.
For a mother never known.
Futile attempts to change this fate.
Though hope burns dim,
I still will wait.

Fourth adoption court petition and another month or so of waiting.  I guess the timing is either good or bad, either way it's tough.  And tough is a huge understatement.

People tell me I'm strong.  I guess they are right.  Yeah, I'm sure they are but it doesn't mean strong people don't break every now and then too.  Today is one of those breaking days.

But that's o.k. too 'cause that just means I'm in touch with what I am feeling rather than wandering around taking it out on everyone around me.  It's not that I need a mother anymore I just need to KNOW who my mother is!  How can you put things in the past when you are oblivious to what that past is.

I am really just looking for closure and a shot at some sibling communication.  I feel "blank" on days like this compared to others.  The lack of awareness about where you come from, and being blocked from that knowledge, it's more than overwhelming.

Do I hate the part of me that is weak enough to care?  Sure, absolutely so.  Do I know that denial can be protective and yet self destructive.  YEP.  So, I'm caught in limbo until the time the unknown becomes the known.

Color me incomplete.

Being adopted, for me, is like being the white crayon in a box of crayolas.

I actually read it as a joke somewhere about feeling as useless as a white crayon, and it struck me that was EXACTLY how I felt about being adopted.  Living void of natural family names, connections, and genetics trying all the while to blend in and all the while feeling so very different.  Blank, without color or use as others were.  Sure white crayons are good for accents, highlights, or as my dear friend Sarah said do well in mixing with other colors to make different shades of other tones.  Alone however, they lose their own individual significance and importance.  For me, that sums up exactly how I feel about being adopted and denied access to MY natural family information.


If you look at the photo and really "see" the difference between the white crayon and others perhaps you will get some insight into how adoptees feel.  Those of us without knowledge of our biological and genetic backgrounds.  Empty of any and all answers as we stare every day into the mirror wondering our features, our habits, and where it is we come from.  I'm almost 53 years old and I still feel incomplete.  Until I have the answers I am seeking I always will.

Adoptees often, and some of us always, feel so very different from others.  The fact is that we are.  In what capacity that difference exists varies from adoptee to adoptee.  I can't tell you in what capacity if any, but what I can tell is that knowledge is power for adoptees.  Whether is it physical, medical, or historical information, be it good, or bad, or ugly, it is ours to have.  No one has the right to deny us the right to our own information.  I'm still working on obtaining mine after 13 years.  Until then, I'm just like the second crayon from the right.


Incomplete


A missing sock whose mate is gone,
a former pair apart so long.
A rundown bridge never rebuilt.
Like patches missing from a quilt.
A letter thrown away and lost,
undotted I's and T's not crossed.
A phone line with connections broken.
Important words that can't be spoken.
We search the people on the street,
and in each face we hope we'll meet.
Someone resembling who we are.
These absent ties that seems so far.