Have I come full circle? In the thirty-five years I was separated from my first born, I never blamed my mother; I never resented her for her manipulation of me and the resulting surrender of my daughter.
Perhaps I was too busy simply mourning my loss.
Mentally, I could not get beyond that, to blame anyone else or even to analyze what had happened to us.
Then, two and a half years ago, I found my daughter.
I wrote a manuscript where I tried to tell our whole story.
I wanted my daughter to have a true account.
This was a gut-wrenching experience.
I found myself, as I wrote, dredging out a lot of really heavy stuff.
Much of this heavy stuff, I had tucked into the darkest recesses of my mind.
These painful memories came to the surface as I wrote.
Suddenly I found myself angry with my mother.
I found I placed a lot of the blame, for the loss of my daughter, on her.
I felt betrayed by her.
I resented that she cared more, I felt, about the opinion of others than she cared about me and my child.
The worst part was trying to act normal around my mother, who was close to 80, and not have her pick up on how I felt.
Much too late, I thought, to lay all this on her now.
She is too old, too fragile.
I prayed about it.
I knew I had to learn to live with it all.
Somehow, I have come to see the untenable position my mother was in.
We lived in a society where, had I brought my baby home in the light of day, I would have been seen as 'trash' to put it kindly.
My child would have been seen as..
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..
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oh Lord, I can't even say it.
My mother was a good mother.
Yes she manipulated me.
Yes, she engineered my surrendering my child for adoption.
But, I do now believe, she did this believing it was the best of all bad choices, for me and for my child.
I'm sure she felt helpless and hopeless.
There was no good answer in those days.
And while I have suffered in silence for all of these years..
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..
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so has she.
While I suffered the guilt of abandoning my child, she must have suffered a similar guilt of abandoning her child and her grandchild.
So, here I am today.
I have found my daughter and we have established a relationship.
Of course we cannot recapture the lost years and the history that goes hand in hand.
But we do have this day forward.
A lot of my guilt has been eased at witnessing her happiness and her close relationship with her Adoptive Mother.
(I thank God daily for this wonderful woman who has been the Mother I prayed my baby girl would have.
This wonderful woman who shares the lovely lady, she has helped form, with me.
This angel who speaks to me of her daughter as 'our daughter'.
) I have worked through my anger at my mother.
Today, I bared my soul to my mother.
I told her all I have just relayed here, and more.
She wept, "Of course, it was my fault! All my fault! No one else's..
...
" With my anger evaporated, perhaps I have come full circle?