The title of this publication had several revisions. “The Weirdest Strangers: Becoming Part of a Family”, “Belonging and Not…”, “You’re Not One of Us”.
To tell you the truth, I’ve been blown away by the things I’ve heard over the last thirty-odd years of my life. If people could understand how their words can hurt so deeply that forgetting is not possible, they may never be forgiven.
chosen to belong
I was adopted through Catholic Charities from Guardian Angel Home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York in May of 1966. This was before Roe v. Wade, open adoptions, and all the other options available to people who wanted children but couldn’t have them on their own. For the background, I was the only child of a union between my eighteen year old biological mother and thirty six year old biological father. I like to make up a soap opera story about how that union happened, but that’s fodder for another post in the future. The nuns of the Guardian Angel Home placed me in the arms of the only woman I know as my mother on April 26, 1966, “the happiest day of my life,” as she often tells me. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends welcomed me home that day, the family that hugged me, loved me, shared my triumphs, and comforted me in my losses.
A piece of paper and a judge pen and I belonged to my parents. The three of us formed a beautiful family; my extended family always a strong and active presence in my life. We lived in a two-family house: my parents and I upstairs and my mother’s parents downstairs. We saw each other every day, always a kiss, a hug and a playful touch of “Pop”.
My grandmother passed away one night in 1973, in the house. My other grandmother was taking care of me upstairs while my mother visited my father who was in the hospital. “My wife, she’s not moving” was Pop’s yell and with that, a member of our household left. His Alzheimer’s suffering was over. Pop would live many more years alone, but he filled his time sitting outside, talking to anyone who passed by, reading his Italian newspaper, and listening to the Italian radio station. There had been discussions between my mom and her brother and her sister about her parents and the long-term care they both needed. But what needed to be done was done as far as my grandparents were concerned and who was right and who was wrong is now irrelevant.
pulling out the rug
But a question his son asked my grandfather caused my existence in my family to plummet. My mother, the middle child, stayed home to take care of her elderly parents. Her sister and her brother left most of the decisions and daily care to my mom due to her proximity. As my grandfather reasoned, each of her children had her house; my mother did not do it so that he would leave his house to my mother. My uncle found out about this from his father and reacted strongly; a question: “So Jane gets the house?”
Her own daughters were outraged and told her as soon as the words were out of her mouth. My mother was stunned and when we children were told to leave the room, someone said: “Because she is not of blood?” I know who said it and I would prefer to leave it as ambiguous as she told herself. Regardless, that question/statement had devastating consequences for an already fragile psyche.
I have had friends ask me about being adopted. I tell them that being adopted at such a young age, I only know my parents and my family; there is no feeling associated with “being adopted” for me. But I feel a growing sensitivity to the comments made about people and their “belonging” in their families. To say that a person who has spent years, decades, even a lifetime being “part” of a family, is “not really part of the family” or even to call them “strangers” is not within the realm of understanding.
There comes a time when you really have to ask yourself about the people you surround yourself with. Although on the outside they may seem quite cordial and sincere, sometimes there are underlying issues that confuse even the most seasoned adult. I’ve heard that young children entering a new family with their father divorced and remarried “aren’t really children of so-and-so.” Children adopted at younger ages than me were “not really his children.” Family friends who have been a part of people’s lives for years, even decades, are often called “not family.” I have even heard some call their “married” relative “nothing but strangers.”
Aren’t we all strangers to each other at the beginning of any relationship?
Are you serious? So understand this
A newborn is a stranger to its mother, the woman who carried that baby for nine months. You are not in their minds, as impressionable as they are, you cannot know what is going on there. A woman meeting a new friend. A man who meets a girl who one day would like to make his wife. Someone you pass on the street. The person in line at the grocery store. However, these encounters with strangers lead to some of the most intense and long-lasting relationships we will ever have in our lives. A son and a father, best friends, a marriage, a neighbor, an acquaintance. At whatever level these people enter our lives and it is a choice we must make as to how deep that relationship takes.
I know many children whose parents remarried after many years and created blended families. The father is the father of each of the children of that family, the mother is a mother. Some of those semi-adopted children (some are actually adopted by their stepparent, some are not) actually become more family-oriented family members, treasuring the relationships in which they were given a second chance. Adoption makes families where there were none. There are many people we all know who are part of a family by birth rite, not anything bigger than that. That “natural” status should never give anyone the power to diminish another’s position in their family or anyone else’s. I challenge anyone to say that a baby would recognize any difference in belonging, whether adopted or birthed in the family she will end up in. Whether her husband-wife, wife-wife, or husband-husband relationship has children as part of it or not is not important—that “significant other” is simply “SIGNIFICANT” to that person; relevant, meaningful, meaningful, thoughtful, your one and only.
And everyone should really be on the same page, whether you’re a stepchild, half-sister or brother, a friend, an integral part of a family for decades, your life partner, those around you need to be respectful of you. and that person and the relationship you feel is important.