Ep 2
Bonus episode 2
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Adopted and Searching: Today I’m Venting
I’ve got to get this
off my chest, so here goes.
Usually I do not use
this blog to vent, but to share my journey, educate, and open people’s minds to
another way of understanding life adopted. But today, I’m ready to rant.
So this week I met a
man. His name is Kenny. He’s the nicest man in the world. I’ll take it further –
he’s not just nice, he’s amazing. When I take my next trip to Virginia, I’ll be
stopping off to have coffee with Kenny, for sure.
It’s amazing how in just a week’s time
you can connect on a deep level with someone. I’m part of a Facebook group that is made up of people from my natural mother’s hometown. I joined in hopes that someone there would know something and help me. These people have been so kind and generous to me, trying to do anything it takes to help me with my search. It was recommended by some of them that I talk to Kenny. His family lived only a few doors down from my natural mom’s family and they are very well known in town. Not only that but his 94 year old mom is still alive and has a mind as sharp as a tack.
Kenny doesn’t
have a Facebook page, and he doesn’t even text! He’s one of those rare people
in the world unconnected to social media of any kind. But, when I called he
already knew who I was, because so many people on the Facebook page had told him my
story.
Kenny immediately
welcomed me into his life and his heart and wanted to help me. He wants so
badly for me to find my natural father. He wants to do anything it takes to
make that happen. So far on his own suggestion he has not called but driven to
and stopped by several people’s homes to talk to them about the situation…people
he feels certain know something. On Thursday night he actually went to the nursing home to talk to his mom about my situation. He implored her, “Mom, keep thinking about this. If you remember anything, no matter how small…please let me know so we can help Deanna.”
“You deserve a Christmas miracle,” he says. “You deserve to
find your Daddy…” he says. “I know if this was my Daddy, I’d want to find him.
Who can’t understand that?” he says.
By now you are wondering what in the heck I am here to vent
about. Here goes…
On my journey I have met several people
who have been willing to help me at this level and in some cases beyond. Many
people I have cold-called have actually taken DNA tests for me. They have immediately opened their hearts and their homes to me. Numerous people
took my cold call, talked to me for weeks or months, and after meeting me said,
“Oh my God! I hope you’re my sister!” or “I’m hanging on waiting for the DNA results hoping you’re my cousin!” or “We’re already planning a family reunion to
introduce you!” I’ve been through this again and again…with people who just
days or weeks ago were STRANGERS and are now among my cadre of friends!
What I’m venting about is that the people who DON’T have the information are most often
the most amazing, loving, nicest people in the world. And the people that DO
have the information? I can’t even say here what they are without losing my
ministerial credentials!!! I can’t even describe them without God Almighty
telling me to watch my language!!!
The people who DO have the information can be the nastiest people
on the planet.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
One of the people in my natural (maternal) family who I am sure knows more than they are telling is always posting stuff on social media about kindness. Stuff like this:
I wish they would stop posting stuff they really don’t believe or practice. They aren’t kind. If they withhold information about who and where people come from they are NOT KIND. They are not nice.
Truthfully it’s starting to concern me a little bit that if my
natural father’s family already knows about me, they may be included among the mean people who hoard information and don’t want to know their own flesh and blood.
Why are some people WITH information so mean? Why do they feel it is their right to withhold information from people who by all human rights should know where they come from?
If you are reading this and you are holding information from anyone whose pain could be taken away by you sharing it, can I implore you to please give up your mean card and tell them what they need to know? What they deserve to know?
Kenny brought me to tears on Thursday. I was leaving work when
he called. He had a phone number of somebody he felt it would be helpful for me
to call. I let him know I was driving home from work and asked if he could text
me the number. “Remember, I don’t text,” he said. Can you get a pen and pull
over?” I promptly pulled over into a church parking lot nearby…the “Church at
the Mall” in Lakeland, Florida. Sitting there I took down the name and number
of the person he wanted me to call that night. A few minutes later after I wrote down the information and was still talking to him, I pulled
back out of the parking lot onto Memorial Boulevard and he said, “Deanna, when
all this is over, will you call me sometimes, just to let me know you’re okay?”
[Insert tears here.]
Update on the DNA Test: I’m Done Being Knocked Down
I got this text today from Angela. (The person who DNA tested for me that I hope is my cousin.) As you can see, DNA results can come in at literally any second
now. I am a mix of excited and apprehensive. In my experience as an adoptee, this moment in time where you are waiting on a DNA result is so unique. In
one sense, I love this moment because hope is alive. Never do I have as much hope as when I’m waiting for those results. When results come back as not a match as has happened to me numerous times, I
do get the feeling for a while that hope is dashed on the rocks into a million
pieces. It’s that, “oh my God, we are back to square one…” sinking feeling. In my experience when that happens, hope is slowly regained through the
encouragement of others.
I am in a really good headspace right now regarding the
results. I can’t say that things have always been that way. There have been
times I have hoped against hope and known that if it wasn’t a match I was going
to be rather emotional about it for a while. I am not sure why, but I am not
feeling that this time. Perhaps it’s because I’ve gone through this so many
times. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten stronger emotionally. This isn’t to say
that it isn’t excruciating mentally or that adoptees shouldn’t take it hard when that happens. I
realize this is totally subjective as well. People handle things differently.
I’ve developed even more of the attitude that relinquishment,
adoption, sealed records, secondary rejection, failed reunion, and everything
surrounding it has already taken so much from my life and I don’t want it to
take any more from me.
I want this to be a match more than I could ever
express. But if it’s not, it will not slay me. I’m done with being knocked down
and I am going to win. I don’t know exactly when I will win, but I know I will.
Adoptees: Go Where the Light and Love Are
Adoptees often face proverbial brick walls within their birth or adoptive family. These walls are fortified by misplaced
loyalty, secrets, lies, (many of being lies by omission) and the like. Many times well-meaning people will take up the cause of those who are committed to live in secrets and lies. Sometimes they are even loyal to the dead, which is the most bizarre of all.
If you keep secrets, you don’t love.
If you lie, you don’t love.
If you build a wall with people who have done nothing but seek
the truth and are committed to live in truth, that’s not love.
Why don’t we go where the light is…where the love is? It’ because we may not think we deserve it. That’s how I felt until very recently.
I am determined to a fault. Giving up is not my strong suit. And, for so long I did not want to
let go of toxic people just because I
went through hell and back to find them.
My walking path yesterday
Sometimes we have spent so much time walking
in the wrong direction, we keep doing it just because we are so committed to
it. We started out on this road, and by God we’re gonna finish on it! We feel like we have to keep walking down that same path because we’ve
invested so much. Do we really expect the wrong direction to suddenly become right? I did. For a long time, I did. I’m also a believer in miracles, and in people’s ability to change. God knows I’ve changed. I believe other people can too. But sometimes, they don’t. And there we are on the same broken down God-forsaken path that we are hoping beyond hope will change. The difficult truth is that everyone is not committed to truth, change and growth.
Life with toxic people is a one-way street. It won’t lead you back to where you belong. And
it prevents you from spending all the time you can with the people who really care about you.
If they lie to you, keep secrets from you or expect you to play along in any kind of
make-believe world, that is NOT OKAY.
It’s not normal.
It’s not healthy.
It’s not love.
Through some close
friends who have walked with me on this journey, I finally have it through to
my head that people who treat me this way do not deserve me. Life is too short to pursue people
who don’t have enough respect to tell you the truth and to live in the truth.
Someone who has to hide
their relationship with you doesn’t deserve you. Someone who tells people you
are a “friend” when you are really their son or daughter doesn’t deserve you.
Someone who tells people they have two children when they really have three
doesn’t deserve you. Someone who says they have one sibling and not two doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who takes up for their secretive lying family member to preserve their “dignity” pride doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who lies to you about who your father is, they do not love
you. Someone who gives you false clues about who your father is to throw you off track and preserve your mother’s secret doesn’t love you. If someone says they do not know who your father is, but they really do,
they do not love you. If they say they know absolutely nothing about him or the situation but they know even a shred of truth, they do not deserve the blessing of you.
Life is too short to
live in their fantasy world!!! This is not as complicated as some people make it out to be. If they
do not speak the truth and if they do not support you knowing the truth, they are
not kind. They do not love you. They are not a nice person. They are not a good person. It’s as
simple as that. God has more for you than this. You do not have to be a
suffering saint on behalf of your birth family, your adoptive family, or anyone in this world!! No
one has been given the destiny of a doormat and you were not created to be
anyone’s dirty little secret!
I have finally realized that there are pure-hearted people who actually care, who
love me or have the potential to truly love me (and vice versa) who have been
begging me to meet for coffee and the like but I just haven’t made the time
yet. Guess what, I’m making time!!
I’m so sorry to all the friends who
told me, “you deserve more than this” while I kept banging my head against the
proverbial wall trying to keep a connection with toxic people.
Welcome to 2019 and a gal who finally knows her value.
My friends and I are still hard at work on my father-search. I go into any potential paternal reunion a different person. This search WILL ultimately result in success
at some point. The DNA databases are exploding. They say it’s only a matter of
time before everyone on the planet has a first or second cousin on both sides. And more people are testing
internationally every day. More Greek matches are coming for me, for sure. I am going
into my paternal reunion in a different head space. My father may be dead by
that time my case is solved, but the rules will apply for any family member I meet. I will go into
this future reunion knowing my value. That will make for a very different
scenario than it did with my maternal reunion. I’m entering this from a place
of strength, not weakness.
Join me, my friend. Let go of what is toxic in 2019. Live in truth and love and make room for all the goodness God has for
you. Wonderful people will line up to meet you for coffee, I promise.