Exceptional Accepting 'the primal wound': my adoption story. (699 words) Gifts of Life and Love by LisaMay      Adoption Contest Winner

“Hello, Stranger, I’m your daughter.” I introduced myself to a fat 68-year-old woman with an American accent, a cigarette to her lips. As I was a sporty Australian who thought smoking was a filthy habit, this was not an auspicious start. “Call me Mother,” she replied. We stared at each other, looking for similarities. I was 45 years old, but felt like a vulnerable, fearful child. We hugged awkwardly. She was nothing like my Mum who raised me. She didn’t look right, sound right, feel right, or smell right. There is more to earning the right to be called ‘mother’ than the mere fact of extruding a baby. Marie, my new-found birth mother, had uneasily agreed to meet me. Secrets and lies would be under scrutiny from her four daughters. She never revealed who my father was. It was 1998. I stayed with Marie for two weeks at her home in a trailer park in a town north of Sydney. My newly-discovered half-sisters lived in different states of Australia, and suggested we get together for a family Christmas. I’d flown over from New Zealand for the gathering. How different my life would’ve been had I remained in that family! Even then, I would not have been raised by Marie. She was married, with three daughters, and living in Canberra when she ran away with a lover and got pregnant. He left her. After failing at her attempt to abort me (what mother tells her child that?!), Marie returned to her husband. He refused to raise someone else’s kid, so I was placed for adoption. It was a fortuitous escape. I’m lucky to be here at all. Soon after, Marie deserted her family again and moved to America. Her daughters were 5, 4, and 2 years old (plus myself, a baby) when she left. If I had remained with the family I would’ve been raised by a resentful non-father and, eventually, a stepmother who favoured her own two daughters. In contrast, I was blessed with the kindest, most caring of parents - Nola and Tom - as my Mum and Dad. They adopted two boys as well. They wanted to be parents; we were their much-loved children in everything but DNA. My sense of self started on the back foot, complicated by knowing I was loved, yet paradoxically feeling abandoned and lonely, emphasised when other children told me my parents got me from the zoo. I yearned for something I didn’t understand. I have since heard this emotion in adoptees referred to as ‘the primal wound’, an imprinted psychological sense of loss for those of us separated at birth from our biological mothers. If I hadn’t been adopted, I would have a different name. Tom and Nola chose ‘Jennifer’. When I met my half-sisters I was stunned to discover one was also named Jennifer. She, like me, was left-handed and an artist. (She is 5 years older than I am. To differentiate, I call myself Jenny.) Jennifer had to battle her father and step-mother to become an artist. I was encouraged whole-heartedly by my parents. Jennifer was banished to boarding school for being ‘difficult’. My parents were closely involved in my school life and interests, cultivating my curiosity, hobbies, and sports participation. I was raised with brothers; Dad was a community-minded man who was a Scout leader, which explains my tomboy tendencies. The other family was an all-girl one. Their father was authoritarian and punitive. Mine was flexible and forgiving. My half-sisters couldn’t wait to leave home and move away. I had family tragedy of a different sort: my favourite brother died in an accident when I was 10; Mum died of a heart ailment when I was 15. I was always very close with Dad: he came to live with me in New Zealand when he was ageing. When I mention my mother or father, people sometimes ask: "Is that the one who raised you, or your real mother/father?” Excuse me?!! My ‘real parents’ will always be the ones who loved me and encouraged me into the fulfilling life their support made possible. They say ‘blood is thicker than water’. I was watered with love. Blood can be messy.   Adoption Contest Winner Recognized Author Notes Author Note: 'Blood is thicker than water' is a medieval proverb in English, meaning that familial bonds will always be stronger than bonds of friendship or love. (Adopted people might think otherwise.) Accompanying photo shows me with my two brothers, Terry and Jeff, all of us adopted. I found this story difficult to write. My first draft began as an exploration of personal nature and nurture. It was far too long. My second draft became complicated with explanations. This final offering has so much missing, due to the word count limit. There is much more to say regarding how my life was enhanced by being adopted by Nola and Tom. I am adding the following notes because readers might be curious about people mentioned. After Mum died in 1969, Dad became upset when I told him I wanted to find my birth family. ''I don't want to lose you, too,'' he said. But I would never have disrespected him. The Australian adoption laws changed in the mid 1990s, freeing up some identifying information. Dad died in 1996. He never knew I eventually found my birth mother. Now I am just a family of one: myself. Lasting relationships have eluded me - divorced, no children. My half-sisters in Australia have many extended family members. Our different upbringing, personalities, experiences, and locations have inhibited us becoming close. I've visited them several times. They've been to New Zealand once. My adoptive brother died in 2016. Marie, my birth mother, died in 2019. I hadn't seen her for twenty years.

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