Mourning my parents
Today, I miss my mother, not the one that the adoption industry gave me in the name of Jesus, but my real mother, the one who gave birth to me. She died in a bus accident when I was 6 years old while going to the funeral of my grandmother. My sisters and I didn't go to the funeral, so I didn't see the accident that caused her death. I told her goodbye just like if she would come back the same day. My oldest sister was the first to learn about her death. She wept and yelled non stop while going to the place where mom was hit by the bus. My other sister began to cry non stop when we heard that our mom was dead. But I didn't cry because I didn't know the meaning of death. I cried at the day of funeral only because everybody was crying but I didn't cry for the death of my mother. After the burial, my cousin and I played like if it was a happy day.
I didn't mourn my mother because I was too young to understand the meaning of death. I was told that my mom would stay at the mountain (where she was buried) so, I thought she has chosen to live there. My sister found that I was cute because I was saying that mom was living at the mountain, in the city of ... Even after understanding a little bit more about the death, I didn't mourn because I didn't want my sister knew that I knew. I thought my mom left us to live with the other dead persons because I have been bad with her but I have never shared this secret with anyone until recently.
Today, I also miss my father, not the one that the adoption industry gave me in the name of Jesus, but my real father, the man who impregnated my mother and the only father I knew during 9 years. I didn't say him goodbye because I didn't know I would never see him again.The day he abandoned me in a street, I cried very hard non stop until night. The following day, I cried silently sporadically. I tried to find a reason of my abandonment but I didn't find any: that day, I understood the meaning of the death because I wished to be dead with all my heart. I was 8 years old and for the first time of my life, I thought of commiting suicide and I prayed God to make me die. I know that if I had died that day, I wouldn't have known some happy moments I have known later in my life but until now, there is no one day that was worth of living for the pain I had to endure for being abandoned.
No day will ever erase the pain of having been abandoned by a father who loved me and whom I loved; no joy will ever compensate the saddest day of my life which is the day I lost my father.
While living in the orphanages, I had hope to be reunited with my father. I'm sure that if I had given the chance to live again with him, it would have erase the pain of being abandoned but the people of the adoption industry never searched him after promising me they would. I never had the chance to say him goodbye, I never had the chance to ask him why he abandoned me, his favourite daughter. Instead of searching him, they made me adopted by two strangers, a woman who wanted a baby girl and a man who already had 5 adult children, in a foreign country.
When an adult loses his/her spouse in death, do we forced him/her to marry another person immediately? If a widower who is still grieving over the death of his spouse wants to marry a complete stranger, would you think it's OK? If your spouse that you love leaves you for another person, wouldn't you take time to grieve or to be angry?
Adults are allowed to grieve for the lost of their beloved but me, at 9 years old, the adoption industry didn't give me the time to grieve the lost of my parents or to be angry. I had to live as if I was born the day of my adoption. I didn't have time to grieve for my mother yet but I had to play the role of a new born baby girl without a past for a new mother who was a complete stranger. I was still hurt for being abandoned by my father but the adoption industry gave me a stranger as a new father. My father was still living and I was still hoping to be reunited with him but I had to consider a stranger as my real daddy.
At the same time than my "birth", I lost my siblings and nephews and my country but I wasn't given the time to grieve over the lost of my family and my country.
The twisted message of the adoption industry is: "Call these strangers your daddy and mommy. Theses strangers are your real father and your real mother. The other set of parents are your birth parents." The most twisted message is: "Your real father abandoned you because he loved you" yet, I was not allowed to fear another abandonement by the new set of real parents who claimed to love me. I had to nod with a big smile when I heard people saying : "You must be happy because you have a better life. You must be happy because you are chosen. Play with this toy, be happy. You would have become a prostitude if you had not been adopted ... Be grateful, you are so lucky." All these twisted messages conveyed by the adoption industry made me believe that I was happy but I carried the sorrow hidden deep inside me.
Some thirty years after my adoption, here am I alone wondering if the hurt will ever fade away with the time, overwhelmed by the sorrow of losing a father through adoption, the sorrow of losing two sisters and a brother, the sorrow of losing a nephew, the sorrow of losing my country and my culture.