The Search, Post 1, Breaking the Silence

My being adopted was never spoken about in my family. Of course my parents knew I was adopted, but so did aunts, uncles and cousins. No one ever mentioned it to me.  However, unbeknownst to everyone, I remembered meeting my adoptive parents. The memory was of me rocking on a rocking horse and my future adoptive mother was playing peek-a-boo with me. My future adoptive father was sitting to the side and smiling. I felt happy.

I also had a very clear memory of me being a very young child and riding a peddle car in the hallway of what seemed to be a hospital. I'm laughing and having a great time and a nurse is holding a doorknob of a door and about to open it for me to ride through. I don't remember what happens after I ride through it though. Lastly, I had a vague memory of sitting in a room with a lot of other children trying to see the TV around the heads in the row in front of me.

Having all these memories is great, but when your parents don't tell you you're adopted, and no one talks to you about it, and you're just a kid, you begin to wonder if the memories are real. When I was around 10 years old, I couldn't take it any more, and asked my mother if I was adopted. She smiled and said, "Yes, you were. Daddy and I brought you home on a beautiful day." I said, "I thought so mom, because I remember meeting Daddy and you." She also mentioned that I never said anything about my past. That was because, except for the memories stated above, I didn't remember anything. Years later, when I put myself into therapy, my analyst said that I had a classic case of amnesia.

One other thing my mother told me that day was that I was 4 when they brought me home. This shocked me. Why wasn't I adopted when I was younger? Was someone trying to hold on to me? What happened to me between birth and four years old? Why 4 years old? Why not as an infant as happens to so many adoptees.

That conversation and those new questions marked the beginning of a lifelong search for knowledge of my past and for my birth family, particularly my birth mother. For many, many years to follow I constantly asked myself, "Why?, but Why?, What happened?, Is she alright? No matter what I did, the constant gnawing questions were rolling around in the back of my mind.

It would be about 12 more years until I started my real sleuth work.