For the sword outwears the sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Lord Byron
I got back from Michigan several days ago. While I was there, I did not hear from my daughter or her father. They didn't phone, they didn't email; there was only silence. While I was at my parents, I was too busy to think about it, but now that I've caught up on my sleep, my thoughts have turned to my lost family. That's how I think of them, as lost. They're lost to me, but, of course, their lives are going on somewhere else, behind a wall I can't scale. It is a singularly odd sensation to be living only blocks from my ex and about a 3o minute drive from my daughter and to know as much about what they're doing as though they lived on the far side of the moon. I pondered this from time-to-time as I lay awake at night in my parent's upstairs bedroom (they've since moved their own room downstairs). It was hot and my husband and I had the windows open and every night around midnight, I would hear a passing train with its mournful whistle and realize that - if he were home - my ex could be listening to that whistle too. And, I also thought about how my daughter and I will probably never be close like my mother and I, or like my son and I, or even like the pair of flowers above. At least, it feels that way to me.
What do I do now? I have no idea. All I know is that I need to take a break. As Byron says, "the heart must pause to breathe." The knowledge that my ex (my daughter's first father) sees her and talks to her hurts so much that I cannot allow myself to think about it too often. And so, I'm going to work on detaching from the pain of estrangement for a while. Dealing with Adoption Rejection helped me deal with some of my sadness. I'm sure that I'll read it over more than once because there's great comfort in knowing that I'm not alone.
I'll end with a story from another friend. Her father was abandoned by his mother when he was only seven. At least, that's the story he was told. His father raised him; I can't remember if there was a step-mother. This happened in the 1940s, in England. My friend's father didn't hear from his mother again for many, many years. Then, one day when he was in his 30s or 40s, she contacted him. But he wouldn't speak to her and so he - and my friend - never found out about why she'd left. When I heard this story, I told my friend that maybe her grandmother had reasons for leaving: maybe her husband was abusive, maybe she was having an affair and got caught, maybe she even wrote to her son and her ex-husband threw the letters away. No one will ever know because she's dead now. My heart aches when I imagine this woman trying to make peace with her son and being answered with silence. And I also think about how some things can't be fixed: they're too painful for many abandoned children (now grown up) to think about. Avoidance and "not finding out" may seem preferable to whatever the truth turns out to be.
Gee, I guess this is a pretty sad post. I hope it's not too whiny, but I remind myself that it's okay to be sad and not being able to see your daughter is very sad. I can't always be hopeful that things will change, especially after returning from a trip in which another attempt at reconciliation was ignored. I'll end with one of the saddest songs I know. (Well, might as well be consistent.)
If you are a first ( birth) mother, what kinds of issues have you experienced in reunion? ( if you are in reunion)
