Grace and Dignity, and the Original Birth Certificate

My mom's sister Jo (my aunt) and me in Long Beach Island two weeks ago.

A note from Jenn, Susan's daughter (Susan passed away on April 7th after an 8-month battle with melanoma, and 7 months after reuniting with her sisters Carol and Jo after a lifetime apart): The post below was written by Jo, my mom's younger sister, and my aunt. Just a mere year ago, due to the closed adoption system that did not allow my mom access to her original birth certificate, my mom still did not know that Jo existed (she also, once again due to the closed adoption system, did not know that melanoma ran in her family). Jo, too, did not know about my mom, though she said she had "always wondered" if another sibling was out there because of something her grandmother once said. She had no way to find my mother, however, and no real proof that she existed. Once she did find that proof (a "certificate of birth" that happened to fall out of a folder at her mother's house two weeks before she and Carol received our letter about my mom), she still had no way of finding my mother, as the name on that certificate (Mary Williams) and my mother's name (Susan Thomson) were completely different. The only reason they (and we) were able to find each other was that a miracle occurred.
But it was a miracle made possible, in part, by another adoptee's tragedy.  I was prompted to send a letter to my mom's sister Carol (my mom had her name and address after finding it by accident when searching for her mother's obituary two years before) when a friend's mom who had just found out about my mom's diagnosis, and subsequently read her blog and learned she was adopted, wrote that my friend's father, who had passed away when my friend was very young, "was adopted ... his family came looking for him a few months after he passed away." Will more adoptees be able to find their original families because of what my mom went through? I hope so. But I also hope that one day no adoptees will be forced into these tragic situations, because all will have unfettered access to that simple piece of paper, the original birth certificate. (Adoptee blogger Deanna Shrodes writes about this conundrum beautifully in her latest post: http://www.adopteerestoration.com/). But I digress. Below is the writing of my wonderful aunt Jo.

Just  A Little Grace (a post by Jo, Susan's younger sister)

Win with grace, lose with dignity. These are the words I repeated to my son recently as he competed against his good friend for a vice principal position. I've thought so much recently about those two words, grace and dignity. There was the grace my sister Susan lived her life with and the dignity she fought so hard to keep as cancer weakened her body and claimed her life. And there was the grace with which she advocated for the rights of herself and other adoptees and the dignity with which she treated all those whose paths she crossed.

On April 11th, I was warmly welcomed to the home of my sister's brother-in-law and wife for a gathering of friends and relatives following Susan's funeral. After meeting many of her family members and friends for the first time I stood amongst the crowd feeling slightly awkward, extremely sad, and angry.  Angry that I never knew about her and that it took a miraculous set of circumstances for us to meet. Sad because we only met seven months before her death, and awkward because I was somewhat a stranger amongst her family and friends. I could never have imagined one could feel so lost amongst people to whom you are related to. How unjust that sealed adoption records should prevent the opportunity to know your birth family should you choose to do so. How grossly unjust that anyone should be denied a birth record as my sister was. How deeply detrimental to be denied any access to medical history.

I  stood there wishing Susan were there with her great big personality and warm, loud laughter. For a moment, as I stared blankly into space, I could almost hear her voice, when something made me look up. Standing just a few feet away from me was Susan's granddaughter, looking my way with her piercing blue eyes and beautiful smile. She was  waving her hand in the air and I remember smiling at her and looking behind me to see who she was waving to. We had met only a couple of times before, but never really spoken, so I really didn't think she was waving to me. But then her hand beckoned for me to come closer.

"I can't find Emma, have you seen her?" she said. "No," I replied, and she smiled, running off just as quickly as she had appeared. There she was in a crowd full of familiar family and friends and yet somehow she had singled me out.

When I saw her again, at my sister's summer beach house,  along with Susan's daughters, son-in-law, husband and five other beautiful grandchildren, it was no surprise that this particular  granddaughter and I became fast friends. She drew pictures for me, took an interest in my camera, photographed her mom and me together and, along with her Papa Ty, went kayaking with me. At the end of our kayaking trip she asked me if I wanted to race, and of course I was up for a challenge, so we paddled side by side, very closely, toward the shore; so close in fact that her paddle hit me in the head, at which point we both laughed. She was not deterred!

Genevieve and Jo heading to shore

She won the kayaking race without a problem; competitive just like her Nana. As she was shouting, "I won," she gave me a hug as we posed for a picture. At that moment,  I knew in my heart that I was the one who had really won. Without her even knowing it, this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl brought me closer to my sister, and just like a white wave that curls and folds on a summer's day, she pulled me gently toward the shore with grace and let me lose with dignity.