I've Lost Two Fathers And It Makes Me Very Sad

1960..the good old days, I guess

I'm so used to pain when I think of parents I find it hard to remember the joy I once had growing up with two people who adopted me and loved me.

I secretly, and sometimes openly, mocked unhappy adoptees who insisted that there is always something missing.  I clung to the myth that two strangers can fill the void left when the people who conceived you want no more to do with you than with a stray puppy they left on the side of the road. 

I clung to the living parents I had until Daddy died and Mom became a breathing corpse, tenaciously clinging to some existence devoid of dignity, joy, and health.   She left behind two broken hearted daughters who miss her very much when she vanished into the unknown void that is called Alzheimer's Disease.  I call it Satan's disease.

I adopted two children who were literally left on the side of the road and cherished the myth that Roger and I could love them enough to make the heartbreak of abandonment and mystery vanish from their lives forever.

Today I realized for the first time that there is an unbridgeable gap

between an adopted child and a person who can pick up the phone and call the people who brought them into the world and point to the bed where they were conceived.

"I dread Father's Day," I told Roger tearfully. "I've lost two

fathers."

My wonderful, understanding (I'm being sincere) husband stared at me as if I had suddenly began speaking Greek.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

I could have flung scathing remarks at him, but I didn't want to start a fight.  I simply said, "I do not even know the name of the man who gave me life."

"Oh," he said, "but that can't possibly be really painful, can it? I mean you never bonded with him or anything."

"Half of his blood flows in my veins," I replied. "Maybe he's a great guy.  Maybe my birth mother never even told him she was pregnant. Maybe he's a wonderful person with kids that I would enjoy getting to know.  Maybe he's a terrible person.   I would almost rather know he's a terrible person than be forced to deal with a ghost."

He still looked dumbstruck.

I leaned into his face again and said, "What if I told you I KNEW what it was like to be diagnosed with cancer at age 17, with college baseball coaches scouting me, and what if I told you I knew what it was like to be cut off from four years of college baseball, fighting cancer for six years, undergoing operations and brutal chemotherapy and radiation instead of fielding grounders for Newberry College?   You'd laugh in my face.

I was 17 once, and the whole world was at my feet.  I rarely even got a cold.

Well, you will NEVER understand what an adopted person feels, BUT I SUGGEST YOU START TRYING SINCE YOU HAVE TWO ADOPTED DAUGHTERS AND AN ADOPTED WIFE."

(sigh)

I miss my parents.  All four of them.

Later we piled into the van and took our popular, beautiful Chinese-American daughter to a party at a house bigger than her orphanage, where she tripped up the stairs and enjoyed a movie, pizza and cake.  Then she casually picked up her cell phone and called us to come get her.  She came home and jumped in the pool in the backyard then came in for a home cooked dinner and is now sleeping.  

I hope she is dreaming of how wonderful her life is going to be.  I hope both of my daughters have the strength of our love to carry them through a day 40 years from now when we will be gone and they will be missing their four parents.

It's all good...for now.