Adoption | Adoptee
Navigating Adoption Reunion: Learning To Live In The Now.
My first father arrived the day after Election Day. How much could my nerves take?
“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being.” Ram Dass
You stand at the water’s edge taking in its vastness, the cold Atlantic nipping at your feet, your arms tightly crossed, protective. The metaphor so cliche — grief is an ocean: waves, threatening undertows, dark and frightening, salt water like tears. Behind you stands your biological (first) father — 26 years searching to find him — with whom you feel right at home, next to him your husband (your home). You hide your face beneath your wide-brimmed hat so they don’t see your tears.
Seven months ago your adoptive brother disclosed the ways he molested you, childhood memories once buried now overwhelm you. 55, too old for his trip down memory lane. Memories of the now dead father who raised us, his love and piercing words and fists and all the broken promises of adoption’s “better life.” You don’t want your newest-yet-oldest father to know these stories — your shame — you want to be perfect so he keeps wanting to be your first and final father.
