Adoption

One Baby's Story

John, 54 Years Ago

Adoption  is  always an interesting subject  of  discussion.   It  often evokes a sense of melancholy or longing from those connected to know what became of a mother and her child after separation;   to  perhaps  follow their life-stories and get a glimpse into what might have been.   I’m one of those fortunate few who had my questions answered.

Clothilde, John's Birth Mother

I  was  born at the Catholic orphanage of Chicago in October 1951.   My adopted parents ‘absorbed’ me into their lives graciously and lovingly five days later.

Interestingly, the adoption agency determined the match between my birth parents background and that of  my potential  adopted parents  was  so  close and unique  that  they  skipped over hundreds  of  names to ensure the best fit.

As  I  was  able to understand it,  my adopted mother  explained the few circumstances she knew about my natural mother.  I found out later,  her  donations of extra toys and out-grown clothing  to  the nuns at the orphanage gleaned some inside information from my ‘sealed’ records.   She  was  able to obtain my natural mother’s family name,  a  phonetic spelling of her first name  and  her  age  (27)  at  the  time of my birth.

In the  years  following,   I charted a very normal life graduating high school,   joining  the  Navy in 1969 during Viet Nam, embarking on a Civil Service career and raising a family of my own.

My desire to meet my mother, to know her, was always there. I didn’t harbor any agendas to confront her with  a  barrage of questions or admonishments why she gave me up.   And while I obviously wasn’t aware of her circumstances,   I  always  intuitively knew she did what she had to do;   and she did it out of love for her baby.

Her ‘baby’ however, really wanted to find her!   It was an itch that kept demanding to be scratched.   I just wanted…to be held by her,   to tell her that I loved her and to let her know everything turned out in a way she’d be pleased with. Somehow, I could feel her guilt.   Among the many wishes I had for her,   I wanted to help take that guilt away.

I’d go to the  local libraries  in cities we’d visit,   researching telephone directories,   always looking for that one  intimate,   special  name  I  could  never  let go of;   my mother’s.   Even though her maiden name was unique enough, (fortunately not a ‘Smith’ or a ‘Jones’) I would always come up empty-handed.

Unfortunately,   all my efforts at creative research proved fruitless.  My adopted mother even enlisted the support of Ann Landers by writing her a letter asking for advice on how to better my chances.

My levels of inquiry waxed and waned over the years with each potential lead fizzling out and leaving me a little less confident that I would ever find her.  I’d pretty much resigned myself that the fantasy view I’d created of her was going to be the only one I’d ever have… until the Internet came along.

With the advent of what to amateur researchers is the  ‘Holy Grail’,  my investigational enthusiasm went into overdrive.   I queried every website even  remotely  related to genealogy along with phone directories and adoptee connection groups.

Thankfully,   dogged  persistence  and  perseverance  was  already  a character trait,   but  I  exercised  and developed these traits in ways I didn’t think possible. Finally,  my years of mining in records and archives started to recover some gold nuggets.

It didn’t take long to realize however, after a few cold phone-calls and e-mails to strangers whom I thought I might be related,  that not everyone was as enthusiastic about my quest as I was.  I knew I had no hidden agenda,   no greediness  trying  to  worm my way into somebody’s last will or any nefarious undertakings, but they didn’t.

While it was disquieting that anyone would take my research as anything  but honorable,   I had to accept that   I   might   be   stonewalled   by   other   (newly discovered)   family   members   and   prevented   from communicating with the mother I was longing to  find.   Paradoxically,   I  might  hit  pay  dirt  and  never know it.

Eventually,   I  learned  to  allay  people’s  concerns  over  my  inquiries  by explaining if what I was asking offended anyone’s  sensibilities  or  they  felt  it  was  an  invasion of their privacy,   that I would gracefully back-out and  never contact them again.   This, along with convincing them that I was not after anything other than information  about  my mother usually resulted  in  their  opening up,   and providing me with snippets of relevant information.

Even following all  these leads,  from  Canada  to  Sicily  and  beyond,  she eluded me.   I could never get an exact match to her family name in the United States… until August 1997.

After  executing  the  same  name  search  for  the  thousand-and-something  time  in  a  common  Internet directory,   in one  lightning-bolt  moment… my  life  changed.   I  got  one  return hit on the name I’d been searching for. Not just a name, but also an address and a phone number.

As the shock wore off I tried to plan what I wanted to say. I realized that I was just going to have to roll the dice and this person was either going to help me or tell me to back off. So, with a double serving of courage, I picked up the phone and called my one and only solid lead.

This lead turned out to be my cousin,   a beautiful lady named Marianna.   At the time I called, she was at her  father’s  house.    When we began talking,   and I started telling her  what  I  was  trying to accomplish along with  the  family  surname  and  my mother’s first name,   she soon put her dad on the line as well to hear my tale.

I provided them the little bit I knew for sure and the few other details I was able to discover over the years. After a bit of thinking,  but without reservation, Marianna’s father,  declared:  “I’m pretty sure the person you’re asking about is my first cousin.”

I was speechless for just a second and then had to work very hard  not  to sound too anxious with my many questions.   Finally,  Marianna  in  a stroke of insight stated she would contact the family genealogist,  talk this over with her and see if she could shed more light on this.

Cousin Marianna called me back and said Eleanor, (the family genealogist) would love to talk to me.  With yet another round of excitement and nervousness, I called to talk with a person who may be able to unlock a very precious mystery.

After our introductions,   I provided her the run-down on what I knew:   Birth Date, Chicago, Mother’s age, surname, assumed first name and anything else that seemed important.

After  letting  me  ramble  on  until  I’d run out of information,   and with little fanfare,  she calmly stated: “I’ve heard this same story before but from someone else.”

It took a while for  what she’d just  said  to  sink in.   But I finally got it through  my  head that my mother, confiding in her cousin  and closest friend Eleanor  forty-odd years earlier,   this person that I was speaking to, that she’d had a child out of wedlock and had to give him up for adoption.

At  least  once  in  every  lifetime  we  all  get  a  joy so big we want to jump out of our skin because we can’t contain it all; this was that moment!

With all the calm I could muster,  I asked Eleanor if she would please be the go-between to connect me with her.   She  graciously  agreed.   However, we  both  admitted  that  neither  her nor I really knew how she’d react.   I asked Eleanor to tell her that  if  she  didn’t  want  any  contact I would respect her wishes and not make any further attempts. I prayed it didn’t go this way.

She took my information and told me it might take a few days  for my mother to digest all of this… so don’t get too anxious.  I told her I’d waited this long,  so a few more  days was tolerable. Just in case,  I mentioned that my daughter was in town and that  my  wife and I were taking her out for shopping and lunch,   we’d be back in a few hours.

As planned, we returned home from some good sales and a great lunch after a few hours.

The answering machine light was blinking.

Emotions are funny things.   We can fantasize for years how we’re going to handle something if the chance ever comes, but at that moment-of-truth we can also take a completely divergent course.

The  caller I.D.  had  registered  four  phone  calls  from  area  code  207.   There  were  no  messages  on  the answering machine however, only hang-up’s.

“207, where  the  heck is that.”   I asked.   A quick check revealed 207 belonged to Maine.   We didn’t know anybody in Maine.

About this time  my  wife  and  daughter  blurted  out  nearly  simultaneous  exclamations:  “It’s her… Call her, now! Now…. You’ve got to call her right away.”

They were now both wearing raccoon mascara from the tears.   And I couldn’t stop shaking long enough to pick up the phone. It took a solid ten minutes of collecting myself before I could even think about talking to anyone over the phone.

Finally, with a lot of deliberate will and what felt like a golf ball in my throat, I picked up the phone and dialed a number that I had no idea where it would lead.

A gentleman answered the phone.   I introduced myself by name,  told him I was near Seattle and that my caller I.D.  had  registered  four  calls  from  his number during the past couple of hours….   I was returning those  calls.   He stated that they didn’t know anyone near Seattle  and  was  I sure I had the right number. “Yes sir, I was sure” I replied.

“Wait  a  minute,”   he  said  as  I could hear him call out to another room:   “You don’t know anybody near Seattle do you? Do you know anybody out there?”

In a soft, but determined voice I heard in the background:   “Yes, I do.”   “This must be for you then.”  as he put the phone down.

Soon,  after a little bit, this voice I’d waited so long to hear picked up the phone and said  “Hello”  to which I replied: “Hi mom, how the heck are you?”

The connection was instantaneous,  like an electrical circuit that had just been made and the juice started flowing!   Through  tears,  laughter,  countless  “Oh,  my  God!”  exclamations  and  a  flood  of  information exchange we spent the next few hours telling each other of our lives apart.

For  the  first  ten  minutes  or  so  in  the  background,   my  wife and daughter were caught up in the most amazing crying, hugging, jumping, crying dance I’d ever seen.

Strange  as  it  sounds,  we  didn’t  have to  go through any awkward nervous ‘get to know you’ period.   We really  “knew” each  other  all  along.   Our  problem was we couldn’t find each other.   Of course she’d been looking for me, but with no information to go on, it was pretty much a lost cause.

The best way to describe  the  level  of  intimate and immediate understanding we  shared for each other is that  if  your  right  arm  were  paralyzed and you suddenly got it back,  it would be completely familiar to you without any hesitation.

I made plans for a  solo  trip  to  Maine the following week.   And,  even  after  a  16-hour day of flying,   my energy upon arrival  there  would  have sustained a marathon runner.   For the first little while,  we were given our own quiet space at the airport apart from the rest of the family.

After many  hugs and kisses,  we sat down together alone.   She explained that when I was born,  she never got to hold me.  As was their custom,  the  nuns  took me  away  immediately  and  all  she  ever  got  was  a glimpse of my profile through the operating room glass.   I sensed her heart had been shattered right there in 1951 and the guilt unbearable from then on.

That  first  night  at  her  house,  long  after her dear husband had gone to bed,  we stayed up until the sun found us in the morning talking  and holding hands at the kitchen table unable to take our eyes off of each other. We had found each other, finally, and neither of us wanted to let that first meeting fade. In a child-like, unrealistic way we just wanted this magic moment to go on forever.

Over that next week, we exchanged countless pictures,  stories,  hugs and frequent “I love you’s.”   We also started to note some  of  the  many  zany  characteristics we shared;   from ensuring  we  kept  our  reading glasses spotless  to  agreeing  that  bananas are only edible for about two days, along with many others.   It was fun learning about each other.

She revealed that her father,  a Sicilian lawyer in New York, was already upset with her “bringing shame to the family name”  in 1948 due to a previous  out-of-wedlock  child  that she kept.   Because of that,   he’d threatened to disown her if that kind  of  "mistake" ever happened again.   A harsh story commonly played out throughout many cultures I’m afraid.

Well,   unfortunately  (or  fortunately  from  my  perspective),   it  did  happen  again.   Realizing  she  was pregnant,   she quit her job in Manhattan spirited herself away  on a train as far as her money would take her,   Chicago and threw herself  at the feet of the nuns at the Orphanage.   They took her in where she did cleaning tasks until I came along.   She went back  to  New  York  soon after I was born and only her cousin Eleanor was told the real story.

Over  the years my wife and I visited mom,   Clothilde five times and had countless phone calls and letters until her death in 2001… four very special and cherished years.

During each visit,   in quiet moments,   we were able to discuss  and  process  that  act she had felt so guilty about. She passed away knowing that the decision she made was the right one for her time and it was done out of love for her child.   She was finally able to let go of the guilt and leave this earth at peace.  I love you mom, we did it!

Lovingly written by John Alagna and shared with his permission.

Clothilde and John