Tag: Death

A Missing Mom

Tina Turner with sons

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26 1939. Her parents, Floyd Richard and Zelma Priscilla Bullock, were sharecroppers. She was raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, where she recalled picking cotton with her family as a child. She sang in the tiny town’s church choir. When Anna Mae was 11, her mother Zelma left her abusive husband (Tina’s father, Richard) and moved to St Louis. When her father Richard remarried, he left Anna Mae in the care of her grandmother. True this was a kinship guardian kind of situation and not all that uncommon then – or today. It still left wounds of abandonment. blogger’ note – I did much the same, leaving my 3 year old daughter with her paternal grandmother, when I took a leap of faith to try and earn enough money to support the two of us (since there was no child support forthcoming).

Tina became pregnant during her senior year of high school. She moved in with the father, saxophonist Raymond Hill, who was living with Ike Turner as part of his Kings of Rhythm band. She welcomed her first child, Craig, in August 1958, though the couple had already broken up before he was born. Tina Turner lived as a single mother until she began her relationship with Ike. Tina then helped raise his two sons from his previous marriage to Lorraine Taylor – Ike Turner Jr and Michael Turner. Tina and Ike Turner had one biological child together, Ronnie, who was born in 1960. Ike adopted Craig and Tina adopted Ike Jr and Michael. Tina adopted Buddhism and feels the practice of chanting has had a positive effect on her life.

Tina suffered the deaths of both her biological sons during her lifetime. In 2018, Craig died by suicide at the age of 55. He had been working as a real estate agent and had struggled with his mental health. Tina is known to have said that he was always an “emotional child.” She described his death as her “saddest moment as a mother”. She scattered his ashes off the coast of California. Ronnie Turner was born two years before Tina and Ike married in 1962. Ronnie had dabbled in acting, including with his mother in a biopic movie based on his mother’s life titled What’s Love Got To Do With It. His father, Ike Turner died in 2007 at the age of 76. Ronnie spoke at his father’s funeral. It was shortly after that, when his own health battle began leading to his death in 2022 from the complications of colon cancer.

Ike Turner Jr has spoken about the estrangement he and his brother experienced when their mother moved to Europe. She was the “only mother he knew” and he felt that she had abandoned him, saying “I haven’t talked to my mother since God knows when – probably around 2000. I don’t think any of my brothers have talked to her in a long time either.”

Tina has said – “I had a terrible life. I just kept going. You just keep going, and you hope that something will come.”

No Right To Be Sad, Still . . .

One of the complications of having been adopted in a closed process is the mess that it makes of biological genetic relationships. Today’s story.

I was adopted through a closed adoption, I’ve connected with my biological siblings, who I’m relatively close to. I’ve talked with my biological mom – maybe three times – it didn’t go well. I spoke with my biological dad once but I haven’t tried reaching out in years because of how poorly my last interaction with my biological mom went.

I just found out my biological dad died Thursday. My biological mom didn’t even try to reach out to me in order to tell me. They’ve already had the funeral. So, it is all done now.

But it hurts and I’m struggling with it. I’m in paramedic school right now and low-key, even though I was no contact with him, I wanted to make him proud and I wanted to meet him one day. I don’t know why it’s hurting so much but it is. I don’t even know how to begin processing all of this. I feel like it shouldn’t hurt this bad, I feel like I don’t even have a right to be sad about this.

Send A Letter

The lyrics in an old song – The Letter by The Box Tops – could fit the story for today –

Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just a wrote me a letter
I don’t care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to my baby again

An adoptee writes that she is seeking advice on whether to reach out to her biological father. It’s been about six months since she found out his identity through sleuthing and ancestry links. When she was still trying to figure out who it was, she narrowed it down to one family and stupidly cold called. She now knows it was her paternal grandmother. She did not take the news well and was not kind about it either. She told the to leave them alone and never contact them again. Since then her biological mother (who she’s never met but have contact with on social media) confirmed his identity and admitted that the story she gave to the adoption agency wasn’t the true story. It’s still unclear if he knows about her existence – he definitely didn’t at the time of her birth. She is considering writing a letter because calling or emailing just doesn’t seem like the right way to do it. Though she worries he may never answer her letter, it would be worse to leave this hanging.

By way of encouragement, another one writes – I sent a snail mail letter to my biological family, with pictures of me and my family. It worked well for me. Good luck!!

And an even better success story – My biological father “thought” he might have been my father but until I reached out at the age of 30, he didn’t want to interrupt my life because he didn’t know what I did or didn’t know. I found the link thanks to Ancestry DNA and emailed his mother. She told me that Ancestry must have been mistaken. She is a sweet woman who just didn’t quite understand DNA testing. She has since accepted my children as her great grandchildren and loves to hear all about us. But at first, she gate kept because she just didn’t know and was afraid of what I wanted.

My dad and I have since established a relationship and he moved (and his wife and their child) 400 miles to live 3 miles from me and my family. Our relationship has its great days, good days, and rough days. I don’t regret reaching out. My biological mother raised me until she passed away when I was 7 and then I was raised under legal guardianship in a not so great situation with my stepfather before leaving his house and living with my mother’s parents who claimed to have no idea who my biological father was. I did not reach out until after they passed away.

I initially only wanted medical information. They have since become some of my biggest cheerleaders and love their grand babies dearly.

Blogger’s note – It was the same with my mom – adoptees lack family medical history. That is the reason that many want contact with their biological family.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Dr James Wittig with adopted son Ronnie

Metaphysically, I’m a fan of synchronicities. I like this perspective – “The universe listens,” Wittig said, and gives you what you need. “Have you heard of synchronicities?” he asked. “It’s God’s way of giving you what you want.” James Wittig notes that “Years ago, I was engaged to be married, and we used to joke about having kids and we’d say: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we have a child, send him away and then get him back when he’s 13, after the hard years?’ Then funny enough, a 13-year-old boy falls into my lap.”

Today’s blog is from a story in LINK>USA Today originally published on a North Jersey website. The story doesn’t tell us whether Ronnie wanted to be adopted but given the circumstances, I really don’t have a problem with this. The story does say that “When asked, Ronnie, now 20, said he did not want to be interviewed. He’s not comfortable talking about his story, but his father said following his graduation from Seton Hall Preparatory School last year, Ronnie enrolled in a welding program at a technical school. He fell in love with welding during a summer program shortly after he moved in with Wittig. He recently used his welding skills to make a firepit that now sits in their backyard.”

The connection between the doctor and the boy runs from the doctor’s work in his profession. About 20 years ago, when orthopedic surgeon James Wittig was a resident in training, his mentor gave him a photo of two young girls he had treated for bone cancer during the 1980s. The photo was meant to be a reminder to the young doctor of the importance of their life-saving work. Wittig had no way of knowing then that the 14-year-old girl in that photo would forever change his life. The other girl in the photo was 10 years old at the time. 15 years later, now in her 30s, this younger girl developed an infection in her leg and became Wittig’s patient. The doctor and patient kept in touch following treatment via Facebook.

The two girls remained friends long after they posed for that photo. Their close age and shared illness had created a strong bond. The older girl grew up, married and had two sons. She had to undergo more surgeries and eventually, her husband and the woman divorced. He moved to Colorado where he died a few years later. She remarried but died (due to complications of her cancer) only a month later. Her boys were just 11 and 7 years old. They went to live with their grandparents, but they also unfortunately died of cancer a year later. This sent them back to live with their stepfather. He fostered them, but did not have the resources to care for them properly. The younger of the two girls (now mature), took temporary custody of the two boys, now 17 and 13. The older boy already planned to join the military on his 18th birthday.

Thanks to a request for help by this woman on Facebook, where she was already remained in contact with her doctor, the younger boy found a home and a man gained a son, already 13, as he has fancifully mused about many years earlier. The adjustment was not easy for either of them. Understandably, the boy struggled with the death of his mother. He had not had a strong person in his life who he really trusted for a long time. Eventually trust came but it was slow.

The Right To Grieve

I am running short on time today (what’s new ?). This adoptee’s story (not my own) makes some important points today and so, I share.

I was adopted at birth and found out around age 5/6. My ”aunt” and my “cousins” were really my biological mom and siblings. I was the middle child. I found out at a very young age about my biological dad. We had contact a few times, without my adoptive parents unaware because they always discouraged me. When they found out, they made me block him in every sort of possible contact ever. Monitored my phone and e-mail constantly.

I found out a few years later that he passed away in a motorcycle accident.

Anyways, I have a lot of resentment towards my adoptive parents ~~ because that was taken away from me and I never get to have that now. I have a hard time processing whether I have the right to grieve a person I barely knew – but that was my dad.

It just feels messed up.

I feel like there’s this hole in me that will never be filled because it can’t.

We had a DNA test done and I’m definitely his. Which I sometimes selfishly feel like I wish that was wrong and someone else was my biological dad so I could have that chance – but it is what it is.

So much of my life, I feel like, has just been taken away from me. It feels unfair.

Some Origins Aren’t Happy

Being a domestic infant adoptee is hard enough but image that you met your biological mother but were told that you were a product of rape and that she wouldn’t go into any more detail about your biological father. This adoptee would rather know the truth than always wonder. Therefore, she asks what other adoptees have done when faced with a similar situation. Did they just let it go or bet a DNA test ? She admits that her biggest fear is that 50% of my DNA is monster and that now she has passed that on to her own children.

Some responses –

I wouldn’t condemn yourself for the crimes of your origin. There’s been several studies on the impact of nurture vs nature. The best way to deal with some things in life beyond our control is to just acknowledge them. You don’t need to accept it, you don’t need to approve it. Just know it and understand what that information means to you and what you will do with it essentially.

Another shared – A very dear friend was always told she was the product of incest. She did DNA testing for other reasons and has found a whole other family that never knew she existed. It’s been difficult for her to navigate but she is glad to be in reunification. The stories we hear about us form our ideas about the world and as the stories evolve sometimes our identities and the world we see changes too.

Then there was this – I’m an admin of a large adoptee only group, and this narrative is sadly not uncommon. Now, your mother may well have been abused, however many women are so heavily shamed that they were left with invent a story that makes what they did (have sex!!) appear more socially acceptable, to them and their (judgmental) family. It’s actually more common than imagined. That said, I’d highly recommend having a trusted therapist in place before exploring – to guard your mental health no matter the outcome. Personally, my mother won’t even say my father’s name. He was a major player. AND I have a relationship with his side of the family, which I value. Take your time.

Another adoptee admitted – My biological mom told me I am the result of rape also. And I’m inclined to believe her, because that’s a heavy burden to carry and I want to believe she wouldn’t lie about it. She did, however, give me his name and I found and spoke to him, and naturally his side of the story was very different than hers. I don’t know where in the middle of both of their stories the truth is, and that will probably eat at me for my entire life.

Then this one – While my mom didn’t say she was raped, she did tell me that my father was a pretty shitty human. They started dating when she was 15 and he was 21. Two years later she got pregnant, thought they were headed to get married, but instead got blind sided by him telling her that he was already married with an infant and a pregnant wife, and that he was also heading to prison for armed robbery. I did do DNA tests and found his side. He passed about a year before I found him. I’m still back and forth on whether I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him or if I’m relieved I don’t have to make that decision. I did find both of those siblings, along with another younger brother (yet another mom) and a bunch of nieces and nephews. As big of a surprise I was to them, they have all been wonderful and welcoming. I don’t know if this helps but I don’t regret finding all the answers.

Some more encouragement – It’s okay to feel like you deserve answers, because you do – even if the answers are uncomfortable or hard to hear her give you. DNA testing helped me find family and get a few more sides to my adoption story than the one I had initially. Your mother may absolutely be telling you the truth, and I’m absolutely not saying to doubt that. I’m also very much a “believe all women” type. But if you feel a nagging that there’s more to the story than you’re aware of, it’s okay to seek answers. Good luck.

More about the potential realities – My biological mom will not tell me any details, although I do believe her that it was rape now. It’s frustrating not to know details of who this person was, but it’s painful for her to talk about it and she said she will never tell me. I’ve done a DNA test, not specifically to find him, but I didn’t get any additional information by doing so. At the moment, I’m just letting it go.

Adoptee Perspectives

There are two adoptees who’s writing I follow. Actually, there are a few more as well. But this morning I read from two that I thought enough of to keep open and quote from and link to today.

From Tony Corsentino, a thoughtful essay titled LINK>Unattached. It is so very difficult to express how adoption makes a person feel. I rush in to acknowledge – I am NOT an adoptee – but as the child of two adoptees who are now deceased, such perspectives matter to me. “Different adopted people . . . hold different views about their own adoptions. Some believe they should have not been born, i.e., that their parents should have had the option to terminate their pregnancies or, if they had the option, should have taken it. Others believe that their parents should not have relinquished them—either that they should have had the support necessary to keep their child, or that (assuming they actually did have the necessary support) they should have used it. Still others believe that the people who ultimately, by legal sanction, started calling themselves their parents should never have done so. These are all reasonable views to take, and every adopted person’s life is different. I oppose the dominant idea of adoption without opposing my own adoption.”

Tony goes on to say – “Taking a baby from its parent and legally decreeing that strangers will now be known as “mother” and “father” does not rate any special mention among all the ways reality is constantly going topsy-turvy. It is adoption’s opposition to the truth that I oppose.” He ends with the thought – “as adopted people, we belong to no one.” Wow, somehow that one strikes right into my heart. While I am grateful to be “whole” now in my late 60s (as regards knowing what adoption robbed my parents of in life, and myself – for most of my own life – from knowing), at the end of all that – I feel that way too. In a harsh reality, adoptees belong to no one – but themselves. Now that my parents are both dead and their original and adoptive parents all dead, sigh. I guess, at some point, we all are alone as our own self.

From my friend, Ande Stanley, LINK>Grappling with Guilt. She writes, “After learning in my thirties that i am adopted, the mortal sin of criticizing adoption can be added to my ever expanding list of offenses.” In very real ways, Tony’s and Ande’s perspectives are very similar. She writes, “avoidance is not a realistic option when dealing with adoption trauma.” And I get this part too – it can’t be avoided when – “you live in a culture that glorifies family severance as a moral good. This shit is everywhere.” Ande confesses “I don’t know what the eventual outcome will be related to speaking up the way we have in recent podcasts.” And describes her hopes – “The hope is that people are provoked, yes. Provoked to think, not that this whole Christianity thing should be thrown out, but that the adoption narrative sure as hell should be. Provoked to think that modern therapy needs to address the trauma inherent in adoption in an honest, critical way. Provoked to re-examine beliefs about children as an entitlement and as a commodity to be exchanged.”

I think in highlighting the various stories I come across – here in my own blog – Ande’s hope is my hope too. The rainbows and unicorns adoption narrative SHOULD get thrown out. The reality is complicated and problematic, even when the adoptee accepts their own reality of having been adopted.

Betrayal Trauma and Attachment

Two of my friends have recently drawn my attention to issues of attachment and betrayal. One wrote in response to a self-betrayal graphic – The thought to comes to mind is that from a young age children are likely to experience examples of this when parents are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as not acting in their best interest. The possibility of this type of ‘betrayal’ is then opened in their minds and then acted out.

The other provided a LINK> to a Neurobiology of Attachment pdf and specifically pg 4 re:the infant’s brain. Families can recover from childhood emotional wounds when all members discuss openly the mental conditions of the parents as a regular family health routine… growth & compassion for all. We learned that ‘communication’ could actually happen through the placenta, in which the adrenaline and cortisol that’s coursing through the mom’s veins wind up crossing the placenta and affecting the development of the brain. “Our connections with other people are critical for being able to tolerate and regulate our own emotional responses.” “This sense of connection occurs through nonverbal communication.”

This caused me to reflect this morning on my two adoptee parents who were relinquished in infancy by their mothers into closed adoptions. They both died without knowing much of anything about their origins – which fortunately, I now know quite a lot about the people and circumstances, though clearly with the passage of time and the deaths of all 4 of my genetic grandparents, I can never fully know.

In trying to put myself into my parents hearts/minds and inner beliefs related to their adoptions, how could they not feel betrayed by their first/original parents ? They had no way of knowing their mother’s stories or challenges or reasons including being coerced (and yes, I will always believe that BOTH of my grandmothers were coerced in the 1930s into giving up their firstborn children) that resulted in my parents being adopted. I sincerely believe that no adoptive parent can truly undo this sense of betrayal by the parent in the child they conceived and birthed. In the case of my grandfathers, it is more complicated. Definitely, one never knew he fathered a son and it turns out he never had any other children (it was the same for my mom’s mother who never had any more children).

I’ll never be able to know exactly why my mom’s father abandoned her and her mother (when my grandmother was 4 mos pregnant, nor why he did not come back to rescue her, infant in tow and financially destitute). So, the line above about communication through the placenta could definitely been my maternal grandmother’s mental/emotional struggles without her husband (they were married, in the case of my dad’s parents, they were not – his father was a married man having an affair with a much younger woman).

No matter the reasons, being relinquished for adoption and never knowing why, is betrayal trauma for the adoptee. I do believe modern trends that keep birth parents in the loop or the effects of reunions instigated by adoptee searches are some mitigating factors to the sense of betrayal that, whether they acknowledge it precisely as that or not, exits within the adoptee.

Besides the pdf linked above, I found two articles via google search that may be useful to some of my readers. [1] LINK>The Effects of Attachment and Developmental Trauma and Ways to Heal the Adoptee from the Adoptions from the Heart’s WordPress blog. (Basically, they are an adoption agency). [2] LINK>From Abandonment & Betrayal to Acceptance & Forgiveness: The Gifts of Memoir by Julie Ryan McGue and Judith Ruskay Rabinor at Adoption & Beyond (a 501c3 non-profit child placement agency licensed in both Kansas and Missouri). The reader is welcomed to consider the source when reading either of these.

I Love Reunion Stories

From the LINK>BBC – Adoption: Son finally meets birth mum after 58 years.

Timothy Welch was only six weeks old when he was separated from his birth mother, June Mary Phelps, who was 18 at the time. He describes his adoptive parents reasons – “They couldn’t have their own children so they started the adoption process and when they were 36 they adopted me.” Timothy described his life with his adoptive parents as “really happy”, and never considered trying to find his birth mother until his adoptive parents died: Bill in 2018 and Eunicé in 2020.

As an adoptive child you always think about researching your birth family. A lot of it goes back to identity as a person over the years. He admits, “I wondered who I was, certain personality traits that were different from my adoptive family.”

Yately Haven in Hampshire was a mother and baby home run by the Baptist Church. It is where Timothy was born. The Haven was open from 1945 until 1970. Almost 1,800 babies were born there. Timothy was able to get a copy of his original birth certificate. It contained his birth mother’s full name, date and place of birth. A search angel was able to use voter registration rolls and with that information, Timothy was able to find his mother’s current husband, Michael Mortimer. Timothy gave Mr Mortimer his email, which he passed on to Timothy’s brothers and they arranged a day to meet up in London. Timothy says of his brothers, “They are both wonderful men – kind, thoughtful and reflective. I feel very fortunate to have met them at this stage of our lives and am going to enjoy getting to know them and their respective families very much.”

He says of then meeting his birth mother – “It was emotional but at the same time it felt natural. We spoke about a variety of things but the part I enjoyed the most was just looking at her and taking in the person that she is.” He was also able to learn about his birth father – Hedayat Mamagan Zardy, an Iranian Muslim. The couple had a fleeting romance and loved dancing in Oxford.

Some adoptees, like my dad, are afraid to know where they came from. My mom yearned to. Reading stories like this make me wonder how they would have felt, if they had the option to experience a reunion. Since they have both passed away, I can only choose to believe that reunion took place in heaven.

Grieving Many Times Over

Today, I share a piece by LINK>David B Bohl, who is an author, speaker and addiction & relinquishment consultant. It is titled On Grieving Many Times, And Many Times Over. I was attracted to this because yesterday was my deceased, adoptee mother’s birthday. I don’t suppose we ever get over the grief. I don’t think she ever got over the grief of never being able to communicate with her birth mother, who Tennessee told her in the early 1990s was already dead.

David writes his adoptive mother’s death was the fifth death of a parent he’d had to go through. He explains that he – hadn’t learned of the first two until much later after they’d occurred. The first one to go was my birth father, who died 32 years before I learned about it, the second one my birth mother whose death I did not learn of until 8 years after it happened (very similar to my own mom). Then there was my adoptive father 12 years ago, and now, Joan Audrey Bohl who died twice —first when the dementia robbed her of her mind and memory, subsequently rendering me a stranger when she would fail at times to remember who I was and why I was visiting. There she was another mom who had no idea I was her son. In those moments, in a most sinister coincidence, she was like my biological parents who relinquished me and existed in this world without any specific knowledge of me.

He wants us to understand “What all of this means to someone like me—a relinquishee and adoptee who now has two sets of deceased parents–is that I must face twice(?), five times(?) a yet-to-be determined amount(?) of grief and confusion. Add to that losing my adoptive mom to dementia, and there is plenty to process, a great deal of loss, and certainly much to grieve. I am, of course, not blaming any of my parents for dying or getting sick, and I’ve made peace with my biological parents for giving me up a 62 years ago. But it would be disingenuous to say that I am no longer affected by these losses and that my mother’s recent death doesn’t trigger some new layer of grief where all of those people who contributed to my existence must be acknowledged in how they shaped my life. And so, I think about mothers. The mother I knew and the mother I’ve never met. And then the mother I knew who no longer knew me. I think of fathers, the one who had never even met me, and the one who raised me and provided me with a life filled with opportunities. And I of course, as a father, I think about my children.”

When I try to talk about my own family, my youngest son says to me – you have a very complicated family. It is true. And it is true for adoptees as well. As I have learned who my original grandparents were and have made contact with that novel new experience of genetic relatives that never knew each other existed – it has actually given me a new sense of wholeness – while at the same time totally messing me up with the adoptive relatives and the feelings I have (and still have) and each of them. Very complicated indeed.

There is much more in his very worthwhile article – see the LINK.