In Her Shoes: A Speculation

My birth mother. The woman who gave me birth.  As an adoptee, it's the strangest thing to know that this person actually exists.  There is a real woman, somewhere, and before I was born, I was a part of her.  If you're not adopted, this is probably not so weird to you.  To me, it's the most amazing thing.  I envied my friends who were carbon copies of their mother.  They could ask their mother what it was like being pregnant with them.  She can tell them stories of their birth. That's a huge gift. So if you have this, cherish it.

Now that I've found my birth family, that unfortunately doesn't mean I've found my birth mother. She unfortunately died the day after my birthday almost ten years ago.  I do get to learn about her from the people who knew her best: my half-sister, and my aunt and uncle, and other family members I'll meet along my journey.

Now that I've seen photographs of her, I can put a face to what I've imagined.  My face, to be exact.  That's so weird to me - to know that she was just out there in the universe at one time, knowing that she had given me her genes, her DNA, and I am a carbon copy of her - one of those things I envied about so many of my friends.  I had that, too, I just didn't know it.  When you're adopted, the thought of your mother - your birth mother - she's unattainable, like a Queen in a castle or a fiction character in a book you'd love to meet but never will.  She's this person you feel so connected to, yet you've never known her.  We have never breathed the same air, never stood next to each other, or looked at the same moon - at least not together. I never heard her voice or saw what kind of clothes she liked to wear.  

I have to be honest, and admit that I never thought about what it was like to give up a baby.  I was selfish, and I only thought about myself. My aunt (my mother's sister-in-law) asked me if I ever thought about how hard it was for her to give me up. My first thought was, "it was?" I never thought about it.  I honestly don't think many adoptees think that it was hard for their mother to give them up for adoption.  It's not something I thought about - ever. I admitted to my aunt that I hadn't, and she told me that it was. Afterwards, I was still thinking about it. I was always thinking of how it affected me - it never occurred to me that it would have been hard for her to do. I mean, I was adopted, so it couldn't have been that hard, right? (I know, easy for me to say) On this topic, I'm selfish. Don't say I didn't warn you already.

If I think back to what her life might have been like in the summer of 1969 in San Francisco, I get visions of Haight-Ashbury smelling like marijuana, men having longer hair than some women, Vietnam War Protestors, flower children handing out flowers to everyone, and somewhere near by, someone is playing a Janis Joplin record.  I was born at the end of August, and earlier that month the Manson family killed Sharon Tate - one of the most worst crimes ever.  So in addition to my mother being young, there was a lot going on.  It was August, so it was hot, she was pregnant, and I was an unwanted pregnancy. I don't believe single parents were as common as they are now.  An unmarried pregnant woman may not be judged too harshly in 2018, but in the 60s, she would have been.  On top of that, my biological father was Asian.  Mixed race children were rare. Not that we didn't exist, but people weren't really talking about it either.  My father was not Vietnamese, but my guess is that anyone of the asian persuasion raised a few eyebrows.  Bottom line: I don't blame her at all for what she did.   

In the summer of 1969, the country was going through a lot of tension.  It was a year that celebrated music and change, but I wonder where she fell in the middle of it all.  Who were her friends? What kind of music did she listen to? What did she do when she wasn't working? Did she experiment with drugs? She was in her 20s, and she probably just wanted to be young- and then she has an unwanted pregnancy.  Me.  I interrupted her life.  I didn't mean to.  Since I don't know anything about my father, I have no idea what her feelings were toward him.  If the relationship ended badly, I can understand doing what she did. Giving me up meant that she didn't have to explain him to anyone, or me, or have a baby that would tie them together.  She wanted to get on with her life, and raising a baby at that point in her life wasn't a part of her plan.  

I always hoped (before I knew my birth family) that giving me up would have had a positive effect on her life - that it would allow her to accomplish and do things that she would not have been able to do if she had to raise me - so that letting me go somehow helped her get closer to where she wanted to be.  Of course, I don't know if it did, but I do know from my sister (one of her daughters from a marriage after I was born) that she had some very good jobs.  She had a very strong work ethic.  When my sister talks about our mother, she has a strong sense of pride when she talks about her. She doesn't have to tell me how much she loved her - I can tell just by the stories she tells, and the things she remembers. 

I also know (again, my source being my sister who was raised by our mother) that she didn't forget about me.  I was told that she mentioned me randomly in a single sentence, "I had a baby in San Francisco" every now and then, so my sister did know about me.  I guess that's kind of the best news when you're an adoptee.  It's nice to know I wasn't a deep, dark secret hidden away, and that my mother's baby (me) was not a complete shock, because there were people who knew.  Although before I spoke to my uncle, I treaded lightly, because I didn't know what I was walking into. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I wanted answers, too.  I was relieved to know that he and my aunt knew all about it.  

If I had a time machine, I'd love to go back in time and get to know her, who she was, just so I could say that I met her.  But I don't have a time machine, so I'll just have to be grateful for what I have right now.  And that's just fine with me.