The first is that eyes have always held a lot of meaning for me in reunion. Growing up, no one I knew had eye color that was like mine – a strange melding of colors that are neither blue, nor green, nor grey, but something of them all that blended together once could not be duplicated.
The first thing I wished to see in my birthmother was her eyes. I was sure that I would see in hers, the color of my own. But they weren’t. In fact, one of the first things she said to me was that I had the most amazing color eyes. Disappointed, I’d asked if there was anyone in her family she thought they came from. “No,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it.”
Meeting my birthfather, who has brown eyes, wasn’t much more help. Though he said that he did think that he had family with similar-colored eyes, he wasn’t in touch with many of them so there was no way to know for sure.
So, for me, eyes became symbolic of the search for self in adoption and that by looking at our birthfamilies for explanations of ourselves we inevitably find that we are who we are – unique and not easily explained. Part of all of our families, a blend, but not an identical descendant of any one.
That’s the one part.
The other is the idea of Reunion in and of itself. To Reunionize. To talk about reunion and to normalize it. Not that it’s any great mystery in this day and age, except, that somehow, it still is. It’s a unique phenomenom. A time when women were more or less cornered into a closed adoption system where the only choices were abortion (if they conceived after 1970), or closed adoption, or keeping the baby and getting married. No appealing options.
And, again, to talk and have discussions from us who have been in reunion for awhile now. Not that I don’t want to hear about those who are new in reunion. I remember that time, and I empathize with it. It’s an emotional time with honeymoon-highs and lashing lows that send your soul into lightness and darkness that is exhausting and confusing. But this blog isn’t about that. It’s about the bewildering and amazing place that we’ve gotten to that by riding through the storm we come to a place we didn’t know existed so couldn’t have planned to head here that’s mostly calm and holds the sadness and loss and the gifts together as siblings in this strange family.
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to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to mothertone
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Thoughts? Reflections? Opinions?
Please comment!
I love that you've started this. I'm 16 years in and the final couple sentences in your most recent post so resonate- there are gifts unobtainable without reunion and there is loss that lives on, probably always will. It's all a crazy wild ride that, even in the relative calm years in, feels charged, emotional, even raw at times. I think some of those feelings for me are poked at by being a parent now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the forum. I am interested to read what others with a bit if time under their belts have to say. I am also looking forward to talking about this further with you next weekend! See you soon my friend.
Tracy
Just read through your and your birth mother's blogs. I look forward to reading more, as well as your book. I think it's a great idea and believe others be interested as well. Not being the first doesn't mean that much, as you've come to realize. It's an experience so unique to each of us that it's kind of like every one of our stories is a first.
ReplyDeleteWhat you're doing will be helpful as well as interesting to many people, I'm sure.
Thanks for the support Campbell!
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