No more lies, no more shame, no more hiding.
I’m done with that already.
When my parents died, our family history was full of stories that weren’t true.
My mom was stolen from her parents at the hospital where she was born in Virginia by a nurse in cahoots with the baby stealing and selling Georgia Tann.
Not true. It was the only way my mom could explain how she could have been born in Virginia but adopted as an infant at Memphis. The only fact she really had to go on was the scandal that was Georgia Tann at the head of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society branch at Memphis.
My dad was left on the doorstep of the Salvation Army in a basket in El Paso Texas by a Mexican woman because his father was Anglo and he was conceived out of wedlock.
Partially true. He was conceived out of wedlock and he was adopted from the Salvation Army in El Paso Texas. He wasn’t Mexican, he was half Danish and his father was dark complected. His mother was English/Irish not Mexican.
I was an Albino African.
Okay, so I really didn’t believe that one but I did say it on numerous occasions because I didn’t know what I was, so no one, not even myself could deny it.
Now I know the truth. To find out that you are not who you think you are is mind blowing. Your world tilts on its axis and nothing is ever the same again. Even the simple act of looking in the mirror changes. It brings a whole other element into the equation of my identity. I am grateful to finally be “whole” after 6 decades of uncertainty.
Adoption is a strange thing that does strange things to the people affected by it. It doesn’t matter what angle you are coming from – there’s shame and secrecy involved. That much proved to be true.
Missing Mom 