Letter to Stranger at the Book Launch

Letter to Stranger at the Book Launch

Dear Kind Sir,

After I finished my reading from Secret Son at the Shaking The Tree book launch,

you tapped me on my shoulder.  I turned quickly, expecting to see a friend or family member.

I didn’t recognize you, but your shy smile sent me smiling back. Your eyes were misty as they

searched mine.

You quietly thanked me for my reading. I was flattered and thanked you for your kind

words.

“You see, I was adopted in the sixties too, just like your son.” You explained. “My folks

said that the girl who gave me up had been a young unmarried girl and couldn’t keep me.

Maybe she didn’t want to keep me.”

When you shrugged and looked down, my heart felt your pain.

“Well, it’s hard to relate to now but in the sixties it was difficult for young unwed

teenage girls to keep their babies without a husband or family’s support. Being a single unwed

mother marked you as damaged goods.  There were no resources to counsel and guide those

girls as there are today.  No support at all. Your birth mother may not have had much of a

choice. Nowhere to turn.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Were you born here in San Diego?”

“No, in another state. I don’t have any other details about my real mother.” You

glanced at me and I saw such sadness in your eyes in those few minutes, as you continued,

“Nobody has ever looked for me.”

“Oh, you can’t be sure of that.” I reached out and touched your shoulder. “It was so

difficult to look for birth children and birth parents before the internet. You could hire a

undercover detective if you had the means, or put your name on long lists and hope your

adoptive child or birth parent put their name of those same list. It was a shot in the dark, at

best – especially if you were thousands of miles apart. Most states had sealed adoption records

and it was impossible to break into them. Actually, in many states records are still sealed.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well originally it was to protect the privacy of all parties involved. Hey, you

don’t know. Someone may be searching for you right now and just hasn’t found you yet.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “I just don’t know. Should I look for her? What if she

doesn’t want to find me or doesn’t want me to find her?”

Others started walking up to us and some attempted to speak to me. You looked

anxious until I motioned for my friends to wait and turned back to you.

As you were stepping away, head down, I caught your arm. “Have you ever done a DNA

test? I don’t know if my son and I would have found each other without the DNA tests.”

“No. You think I should? Isn’t it expensive?”

“Ancestry.com has the DNA kits on sale often. As low as $59. Sometimes. It’s so worth it,

my friend.”

Your face lit up revealing a brilliant smile.

“I think I’ll do just that. Do you think she might have done hers? She may want me to

find her?” Your face fell “Or would that disrupt her life?”

“You never know until you try. I do know one thing. It is the best thing I ever did.

I can’t promise you the outcome if you do find each other. It is worth a try though.  She has not

forgotten you. I do promise you that.”

“Thank you. You give me hope. By the way-I loved your story.”

“I’m glad. You made my night. Just start there with the test.” I handed you my card.

You nodded towards my friends as we clasped hands. Then you were gone.

***

That is probably the last time I will see you, but I think of you often.  Good luck my

friend, I hope you submit a DNA test and pray you find your birth mother and I hope she is as

ecstatic to be found as I was when my son found me. I hope someday you put your arms

around her and hold her, like she has dreamed of for 50 years.  I don’t know her story, but I do

know how a mother who has held you under her heart for 9 months has not forgotten you.

You are her and she is you.

With love and best wishes,

Laura

Laura L Engel

Author of Secret Son in the anthology  Shaking the Tree: brazen.short.memoir

www.lauralengel.com 

The Cord

The Cord

My son Richard (everyone calls him Ray) reminds me of my other three sons, Dustin, Marc and Ian in so many ways.  Same chin, similar bone structure, same quick humor, sometimes sarcastic, bright, and extremely competitive.  His three half-brothers have a different father of course, but I see mostly me and my side of the family in all of my four sons.

Perhaps because that is what I look for?

Another family trait is that we are all communicators in some fashion.  I am one of those fortunate Moms.  My grown sons, two in their 40s and two in their 50s still find time to connect with me.  For the most part, at least every week there will be a call and several texts from each of them.  I love that. I never want to be the ‘nosey Mom or Mother in Law’ pushing my way into their or their wives’ busy lives of career and raising children…their business. I cringe when I hear stories of mothers trying to control their adult children.  I am always here if they need me, but my sons are “men” after all, no longer little boys who demand their Mom’s constant attention, worry, or advice.  I raised my boys to become men, not Mama’s boys. 

I can see a difference sometimes in the way Ray communicates in comparison to the way my other three sons communicate.  Is this another Nurture vs Nature moment?  Or just his way?  He is not as quick on the text replies, or even  call backs. In the beginning of our new found relationship, it worried me to no end.  My squirrely insecure brain would jump into over drive.

Did I say something wrong? Does he still want this relationship? Did I offend him? Did he not get the voicemail? The text? Was it too good to be true?

I know, I know, I sound like fourteen year old girl with a crush. But I speak the truth, when I say the experience was very similar.  After all I had fallen in love with this secret, now found son. About the time that I would start worrying that I had not heard back from him,  and that big insecure place in my head was consuming me ..ding!  A text. Or a return call.  All was fine, he’d say, he had simply been busy. After all, he like all the sons, had a full time career, wife, children, obligations… well, a life.

Of course, my rational brain would make me smile at my silly worried self. Also, intellectually I would realize, our relationship was working itself into a normal healthy one, no longer the frantic honeymoon it had been when we first reunited.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

But, I cannot lie.  There is nothing much better than getting that return text or a heartfelt one filled with loving words from any of your children. They validate us as Mothers. Those texts are the adult equivalent of the handmade valentine your 6 year old crafts with squiggly printed letters, and extra glue and glitter smashed on top of those beautiful intense words.

‘ I LUVe YOU MOMmY …You are the Best…’

Does that ever get old? Never, from any of my sons.

Since I lost the chance to raise Ray, to see his first tooth push through pink baby gums, his first tottering step, his first day of Kindergarten or graduation from college, every visit, every call and text are amazing to receive. Every milestone I didn’t live through with him still weighs heavy in my heart and any communication we have slowly heals that.

Sure, Ray and I have missed all the hard stuff too, like discipline, frustration not seeing eye to eye with your child, or restriction because he didn’t obey rules and curfew as a willful teenager. ‘All those things that happen naturally so that you are ready to cut that cord when the time comes,’ the old saying say. But are we truly ever ready to cut that umbilical cord? I think not.

That cord is for life, no matter the circumstances, no matter the distance.  This I know is true. That invisible umbilical cord continues to serve it’s purpose, no matter the miles apart, or the years that pass. And my greatest joy is that now, I am connected to all four of my sons as it was meant to be.  Always.

What will people say?

What will people say?

One of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my life took place in October of 2016.  That month the son, I had been forced to leave and relinquish for adoption, 49 years before, emailed me and reunited with me through the miracle of Ancestry.com DNA.

The exquisite joy of my son finding me left me giddy, fearful, and beyond walking on air for months after. I can honestly say, it was one of the most exciting and miraculous times in my life.

The dilemma was that I had given birth to this secret son, while a teenager in an Unwed Mother’s Maternity Home in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had been allowed to give him the crib name, Jamie, and only been permitted to hold him twice. I was told once I left him, I should forget that this unfortunate and sinful experience ever happened. We unwed teenagers were made to feel like criminals, damaged goods. In the sixties the stigma and shame of having a baby out of wedlock was cruel and unrelenting. 
Six months later I left my childhood home filled with shame and guilt, married to the first man who asked me and moved to California.  I was determined to leave my old life and begin a new life.
I held the truth of my son close to my heart and tried to forget the whole experience. I began creating a new me. I became the mother of three more tiny sons within seven years and my life revolved around raising them and proving to myself and the world that I was worthy of being a mother.  Life continued in its splendid chaos. Over the long years I divorced the wrong man I had married simply to escape the south, became a single mom, started a career, married the right man gaining 2 more children through marriage. Our children grew up, we became grandparents and my life was full and purposeful. I could not have asked for more.
Could I?
The truth is no matter who I became, I could never forget that baby boy who had grown inside of me for 9 months. He was part of me and I can only compare it to losing an arm, a leg, or a chunk of my heart. A day did not pass that I did not mourn the loss of Jamie. Yet I continued to hold that hard kernel truth within me. He was imprinted in my very being, invisible to all but me.

Hence the problem.  My son had been my complete secret for 49 years and now here he was healthy, happy, and successful. He was married with three children. He was kind and did not resent me or blame me for leaving him. He had been raised by loving and devoted parents, decades older than the teenage girl who had given birth to him. He was real. He was my son. I was smitten, in love, and filled with the joy that a new mother feels when she first holds her newborn and looks into his face.

On Oct 9, 2016, I was still living with the buried sadness and shame of having to have given up my baby, as if I was still 17 years old and the year was 1967.  The next day on Oct. 10, my son, who had been named Richard after his adoption, was no longer a secret. We were reunited and within hours I wanted to shout to the world, “My son has found me. I have another son.” It was a glorious miracle he had found me yet daunting as to how I would go about shouting out this fantastic news.  I quickly devised a plan with my husband. Thankfully I had confessed my secret to him 36 years before and he had honored my choice not to disclose it.

The plan was to tell our other children first and next tell family members and close friends one by one.
I wanted was to see my son and be with him quickly but first I had to announce his ‘birth’.  The most beloved and important people in our lives deserved to know this story about my past and his birth before anyone else.

Through many tears, some hard to explain confessions, and a lot of hope, I weaved my way through the telling of Jamie, who was now Richard. Here is where my humbling and renewed faith in mankind took place. 

My adored three sons, and beloved two step children all handled this news remarkably well after their initial shock and sadness that I had lived with such a painful secret. I was grateful and proud of my tender and loving adult sons. They would welcome their new sibling with open arms. I had never loved them more. Other family members received the news with shock, love and good wishes for the reunion of myself and my son. Our friends were unbelievably kind and full of love for me after they assimilated the shock of my story.  I had never dreamed possible the support and love they showered on me. As I said, I had wrapped myself in that quilt of shame from the sixties for decades.
Out of at least 30 of my dearest friends I told the story to only one person, and I can honestly say I wasn’t surprised because of who that person was, gasped when I told her my story and whispered in a concerned horrified voice, “Oh, no. What are people going to say?”
It was the sixties all over again.
In her defense, I like to think this was said with true worry for me and my feelings. I quickly steeled myself and blurted out, “I don’t give a damn what people are going to say.  My son has found me and nothing can take this magnificent joy away.”

A huge boulder was released. Relief flowed through me like golden honey. It was in that minute that the shame, the guilt and the horror I had lived with melted a little.  Forgiveness for myself begin to slowly warm me. Intellectually, I had known this was a different and less judgmental society in 2016. Intellectually, I had known I had no choice in the matter of giving up my son as an unprepared teenage mother with no support. Yet, hearts are mysterious and splendid muscles and heart memory had held me hostage. 

In finding me my son, Jamie/Richard began the process to set me free. Slowly but surely my heart began to mend as I tiptoed out into the world, shouting to whoever would listen.

I believe in miracles. My son is a secret no more and life is good. Life is great.

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