To: K-list
Recieved: 2003/01/29 00:01
Subject: Re: [k-list] my dad
From: Lady Joyce
On 2003/01/29 00:01, Lady Joyce posted thus to the K-list:
Rita and others wrote> You are right. They (and we) need to learn this, to
> make our own way, or else we will not integrate it, it
> will not be ours to know or experience. Thank you for
> all you have written here.
>
> love,
> rita
Dear Rita and others who posted on "my Dad..."
Dear Rita...As you know, you are one of my favoRitas. Many of you know that
I am an adoptive mother. My two beautiful boys got to me the way God wanted
them to get to me. They were meant for me, just not for my body...I had
written the post below this past Thanksgiving. I wanted to write something
to you who were adopted to tell you how special you and your birth parents
are, but I can't do any better than what I have already said below...
Except, do let me say that the more the conscious "we" feel removed from
others and maybe alone, whether it be because I think a parent does not love
me, or other people think I am weird (that happens to me all the time :-),
or maybe because I somehow feel alone in the world because I am not sure why
my birth parents did not keep me...the more we find our way to God, if we
want to. God is always there, loving all of us because God Is all of us.
So, Rita, your loving mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, are infinite.
Know that we all love you so much, in the oneness of infinity. There is a
reason for everything. May I surrender as my everything unfolds.
As this Thanksgiving, 2002, falling on November 28, approaches, my mind
wanders back.. It is a few days before Thanksgiving, 1984...
I...I LOVE YOU TOO, MOM
...I can still feel the pain of going...going...gone...when I think of the
last time I spoke to my mother days before she died. It was right before
Thanksgiving in 1984. This would be the first time I would not come home for
Thanksgiving with the family. Every year, I faithfully drove to Wilkes-Barre
to spend this holiday with them. This time I would stay home. I don't even
remember now who called who. We talked for awhile. Things were always a
little strained ever since I had told them about Carty.
We ended our conversation. After we said goodbyes, I put the phone down to
hang it up. I heard her say..."I love you." just before it hit the base and
turned off. My mother was not one to say that to us. I always knew she loved
me but she was not one to say it to us. I was surprised. I almost called her
back to say, "I love you, too," but I did not. I was not used to saying it
to her either. I let it go and ignored my little urge to call her back. Two
days later, she was dead. I love you too, Mom.
II. ONCE YOU LEARN YOUR LESSONS, THE PAIN WILL STOP (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross,
MD)
Life continued, marked with racism and family shunning. I chose my path, so
I lived it. Any thoughts about racism were lost in my grief from 1993
through 1996. During that time, I lost four pregnancies. My first loss and
surgery came on my 38th birthday in late August of 1993. Some birthday
present....let's skip that and move ahead a few years...
After that, I had to undergo surgery so many times. Or so it seemed to me.
Some were to remove miscarriages. One was to remove a dead four month old
baby girl we named Kara, which means "my heart." She was the result of In
Vitro Fertilization procedures, the second of four of them. She was my third
pregnancy loss. I remember it vividly still.
It is the night after Thanksgiving 1995. I go to sleep tired but happy to
finally be pregnant, four months into it. This is the farthest I have
managed to get so far. Yet I am plagued by self doubt. I have been so
hounded by misery that I can not imagine ever digging out of the hole. I
want to feel optimistic, yet there is a nagging fear that keeps assaulting
my mind. I try to ignore it. Don't look for trouble. Enough will come your
way. No need to chase it down.
I suddenly wake up as I feel a gushing of liquid between my legs. This
should not be. I get up from the bed in a panic. I feel the sheets where I
had been. They are soaked. What has happened? I go out to the other room to
find Carty. I tell him what has happened. We call the doctor to tell us what
to do, but I know in my heart that something terrible is wrong and there is
no turning back.
I try to banish this thought as we drive to the hospital. I know enough
physiology/biology to realize that it had to be that my water had broken.
This could not be good. It was not good. If the baby survives, it will be
crushed inside of you because there is no water to surround the baby in
protection. My uterus would be the vise of deformity to this child. How
could I possibly try to keep this pregnancy? How could I let my own
selfishness go so far that I would fight to keep this baby alive inside of
me, knowing that any life that emerged would be horrific? Yet, I could not
say-stop this pregnancy. I could not do it.
In my heart I knew the decision was already made. I think I knew the
decision would be taken from me. It was not for me to make and I had to
surrender to that twisted gift of the fates. So I waited to see. The answer
came two days later, in the morning of November 28, 1995. My little baby
had died inside of me. My mother had passed on November 28, 1984. The irony
of the dates did not escape me.........
When the fourth IVF was successful, I was elated. What could go wrong now? I
was floored when the doctor realized something was wrong about 10 weeks into
the pregnancy. This would require another procedure as the fetus was too far
along for any other method. The biopsy revealed some defect called
trisomy13. I was 41. I was broken. I was defeated now. I finally
surrendered to God. I was a willing subject now. "I will do what you say. I
am defeated. If that is what you wanted, you got it. I am defeated. I will
embrace the soul you send me."
We were led almost immediately to Jason's birth Mom, I'll call her Manna,
from Heaven, and she to us, through two different agency sources. As we sat
across one another the day we met, she carried Jason in her belly, I carried
my Trisomy13 nightmare in my belly, scheduled for surgical removal the next
day, something she did not know at the time. So, death was in my belly, life
was pulsating in hers. I chose life. The life of my first son, Jason, which
means "healer." You see, my mission was not to bear children, but to adopt
them. Once I accepted this, I had a baby in my arms in a few months. My
Jason. He is the child who healed my broken heart. He is the child who also
helped to bridge a little bit of the gap between me and my father.....
III. MANNA, FROM HEAVEN
It is a few days before Thanksgiving, 1999. I am so excited. My heart is
full, waiting for the telephone call to tell me that Jesse has been born. I
cannot sleep. I cannot stop thinking about it. I hope everything goes OK. I
hope that Manna does well. I pace, my mind full with so many emotions. Will
he be healthy? Will she change her mind? How is she doing? I can't wait to
see him. Who am I? Am I the brother? Am I the sister? Am I the grandmother?
I am the anxious adoptive mother.
This is her second time now. Will she be able to go through with it? To give
me yet another child of her body, born of the same father? How can I bear to
take this baby from her? Yet I cannot do anything else. He is Jason's
brother. He is my child. My son, Jesse, which means riches. Manna, from
heaven. That is his birth mother. That is what he is to me. Jesse...riches.
The riches of Thanksgiving.
I get the call that Jesse has been born. It is November 23, 1999. I wait to
be told that I can come to see him. To bring him home. That is Manna's right
and hers alone. I wait. She does not call. I wonder. Has she changed her
mind? I could not blame her if she does. I bleed for her knowing that this
will be the second time that she will gift me with the child that cannot for
some reason, come from my body.
Finally, she calls and tells me to come on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. She
will be leaving the hospital alone. I will be leaving the hospital with my
new baby. To bring Jason his brother. To enrich our family, grace descended
upon us, without us even asking for it. For some reason, God wants Jason and
Jesse to have each other.
I go to the hospital with mixed emotions. It is a bittersweet moment. The
bitter pill is the one that Manna has to swallow. She and I are connected
forever...so I feel the pill as it goes down too. Finally, I go the room
where she waits for me with Jesse. She and Jesse's birth father are there.
As I walk into the room, I see Jesse in the bassinet. I stifle my little cry
of joy, wanting to pick him up, but not daring to do so just yet. I look
into Manna's eyes and I am lost in her grief. There is the pain of a
lifetime etched into her face. The first time, she did not quite know what
she was getting into. This time, she does. She knows just how much pain lies
ahead for her. So do I.. But I will not cry in front of her. I must be
strong, for her.
We talk briefly, awkwardly. I am of the impression that they will say good
bye to Jesse and then place him with me. I leave the room and wait to be
called. I am called. I go to yet another room. Now I am crying. The nurse
takes me in. Manna is gone now. She has left. She could not bring herself to
place Jesse in my arm herself. Oh, how I understand. I feel such gratitude
and blessings. I also feel such grief and pain for her loss, my gain.
I drive home, knowing that Jason and Carty wait for me. We had decided not
to bring Jason to the hospital because I felt it would be too much for Manna
from Heaven to bear. I walk up the front steps with Jesse in his little car
seat. I set him on the porch right in front of the door and knock at the
door. The door opens. There is Jason...jumping up and down...calling...Jesse
is here...Jesse is here...he lets me in and sees his brother for the first
time, two little boys blessed by God.
So, on this Thanksgiving Day, three years later, I would like to say this to
all, sent to me on a placemat Jesse made for Thanksgiving in school :-)
Thank you for the world so sweet
Thank you for the food we eat
Thank you for the birds that sing
Thank you God for Everything.
And, to quote the Woman Zen Master Sono, who advised every one who came to
her to adopt an affirmation to be said many times a day, under All
conditions. The affirmation was, "Thank you for everything. I have no
complaint whatsoever."
Love,
Joyce
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> > felix
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