I Feel The Need To Protect Her, Part II

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th, 2014. 

This summer, not writing

I didn't write over the summer because I was angry each time I sat down to write, and though anger has its place in the adoptee rights' movement (as my mom wrote back in 2013: click HERE to read her post), it alienates those we most want and need to change. And it is not good for my heart, which I am determined to protect. What I've learned is that love will protect my heart. Truth, too. Anything else must go. So I was busy swaddling my heart in love and truth this summer.

This has been useful as I've worked to forgive those with power (read: The Catholic Conference of New Jersey and The Catholic Star Herald) who have done so much to harm those without power (read: adoptees, their adoptive parents who want to help them, and their biological parents). For some time, I was not sure as to how to proceed, so dismayed was I by the harmful messages put forth officially by the Catholic paper (and the harmful lobbying undertaken by the Catholic Conference in Trenton). But somehow I found my way forward. My faith is stronger than before. Not in institutions, which are run by human beings, whose own faults and shortsightedness are often reflected therein, but in a Loving God, one who rejoices in the truth and cares for the powerless. I believe. You cannot take this away from me.

I needed this perspective when I arrived home this evening to find a story entitled Changing adoption law in New Jersey (click HERE to read) in the Catholic Star Herald. Beneath the title is a quote in bold from "a birth mother" who does not want her child to contact her and is opposed to the law. Her story (she never told anyone other than her mother and husband about the child, and her 92 year old mother would be severely harmed were the "child" to ever appear again) is featured throughout the article, apparently to make the point that the Catholic Conference did the right thing in advocating against the law. The story also serves to portray adoptees, once again, as somehow dangerous to the people who brought them into this world ("A simple search could reveal her mother or siblings' identity and whereabouts" "My main concern is for my mother and her wellbeing ... This would just hurt her so").

Something has gone terribly wrong. Sometimes, parents cannot care for their children. Sometimes they can't love them, either, sad as that is. And sometimes (as the birth mother featured in this story speaks of) conditions are so unimaginable, so cruel, that parents have no other choice than to give their children away. But when we as a society make those children feel ashamed for wanting to know the truth of their lives, when we make them feel unworthy of this, well, then, we are lost.

For forty-seven years, my mom was an adoptee who did not search for her family. It was a medical crisis that prompted her search, and at first she stated (and believed) that it was only because of the medical crisis that she was searching. It gave her permission. No one had ever explicitly told her not to search, but she had picked up on all the cultural messages that subtly or not so subtly discourage adoptees from expressing any true desire to search. What she found was not all pleasant, but it was hers to find.

Tonight, I am more sad than angry. Sad that even as we approach the day in New Jersey when adoptees finally will have a right to their own birth certificates, stories like this put fear in the hearts of those who might  hear from them. Sad that there are still birth parents who feel such shame. And sad that there are those in power who perpetuate such fear and shame.

But I am hopeful, too. The law allowing adoptees in New Jersey access to their birth certificates goes into effect in January, and the state is already accepting applications in order to stay ahead of the expected demand. Information and forms can be accessed and filed HERE. It's not everything, but it's a start. The rest will come. I have faith. And I have love and truth. For that I am so, so grateful.

I Feel the Need to Protect Her

Another post from Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away from malignant melanoma in April of 2014. She met her biological sisters 8 months before that. 

A few things happened today, Saturday, April 30th. First, I received a letter from my church, Sacred Heart in Camden, about the House of Charity and our parish's goal of raising $51,273. I contemplated what to do. I love that church. They have been good to me and my children. I want to do our fair share to support it. But I don't know about the larger Catholic Church. I just don't know. I put the letter aside to think about it. The rest of the day was spent with my kids. Grace, my oldest, had a

Mom and Genevieve, circa 2008. "I feel the need to protect her."

soccer game in Medford, against the Medford Strikers, Carli Lloyd's old team. Though she didn't win, her team played great, and she had a few nice attempts on goal. Watching her play always, always makes me ache for my mom, who loved watching Grace play and reminded me that what I was supposed to say after a game was exactly that: "I love watching you play" and nothing more (i.e. no criticism or post-game analysis). Can you see this, mom? I sometimes think on the sidelines, watching Grace go.  I hope she can. After the game we raced home to see Grace's younger sister, Genevieve, perform in Peter Pan. She was a pirate. Watching her, so happy, dance and sing on stage, I of course thought of my mom as well, and how she would have been there. "I don't know why but I just feel a need to protect Genevieve, more than the others," my mom told me once. She would have loved to see her so happy, so in her element.

After the second showing of the play tonight, Genevieve went with a friend to the Friendly's after party, since I had to put her younger brother to bed and her dad was away. It was while I was waiting for her to get home that I happened to open the Catholic Star Herald from yesterday. This paper goes to all the dioceses in New Jersey. First I read a nice story about the Center for Environmental Transformation in Camden. Dimitrius Eliza, the 17-year-old Senior Farmer featured, is a member of my church and a phenomenal young man. I loved reading about him. Then I turned the page. This is what I saw:

There are so many reasons that both of these articles upset me, and that they should be upsetting to any sentient human being. My reaction upon reading them was to dig out the folder with all my mom's adoption correspondence. I found her letter to the Children's Home Society in Trenton from March 11, 2003. They had just refused to forward a letter she had written to her birth mother (who had been contacted by the agency by phone and apparently indicated in a "hostile" way that she wished for no contact with my mom). I will not include the whole letter here but rather just the postscript:

P.S. You refuse to forward a single letter of reconciliation to my birthmother, who has now rejected me twice and hurt me so badly, because the action could be deemed "legal harassment"? When I have not requested a face-to-face meeting and when there was no written contract guaranteeing her anonymity in the first place? Frankly, I don't believe you could be more insensitive to my feelings and my need to heal; you are simply conducting business as usual and hoping I'll crawl back under a rock. 

What are you afraid of? That this woman, elderly and probably of modest means, will sue because she receives a single letter - and a kind letter at that - about an issue she'd rather not think about? I imagine the likelihood of my taking some legal action is quite a bit higher, since I am totally committed to my rights as a human being, I am economically secure, and I am about as angry as a person can possibly be. 

Please note that in 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld two landmark decisions in Tennessee and Oregon, saying that the right of the adopted child to know her origins prevailed over the right of the birth parents' confidentiality. The legal tide is changing, thank God, even as your bureaucracy strives to maintain a safe and noncommittal position on the shore, all the while maintaining that you have compassion for the feelings of the adoptee. You can't have it both ways, and you have made it quite clear in your refusal to make any exceptions or compromises in my case that adoptees' feelings are always considered last, if at all. 

The tone of the Catholic Star Herald's articles (don't they know that in other countries the Catholic Church has apologized for its role in adoption?) has insured that I will not be giving to The House of Charity this year. It is not an easy decision for me. For as much as I am more conflicted than ever about how (if at all) I can continue to be involved in this church, I am not conflicted about my belief in God, nor my belief that God is good. Somehow, some way, my mom is with this God. Ironically, it was finding my mother's sisters, one of the greatest miracles of my life, and certainly of hers, that helped cement this belief for me. I simply felt it to be true with all of my being, even in one of the most difficult times of my life. It is because of this belief that I remain committed to keeping my faith at the center of all that I do. It is because of this that I remain committed to working for good. Whether or not I can do that as a member of the Catholic Church is something I am trying to figure out. While I work on that, I'll keep writing, and I'll keep sharing my mom's words as often as I can because ... well, just as she said about Genevieve all those years ago, I feel the need to protect her. Her and all the adoptees who are not protected at all. May God keep them close. 

Click HERE (scan of physical paper) or HERE (link to website with articles -- scroll down to second and third stories) to see the two stories in The Catholic Star Herald (4.29.2016). I plan to write more about what's so upsetting about these stories, so for those commenting, please know I will incorporate your comments. Thank you.

A Life That Will Not Be Silent

My mom with our dog Ranger. 

Tomorrow, April 7th, is the two year anniversary of my mom's death. By the time I post this, it will
probably be the anniversary. It is also the birthday of my husband's mother, who passed away 12 years ago, when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. Crossing the Ben Franklin Bridge this evening, over the Delaware River that separates Philadelphia from my home in New Jersey, with my 5-year-old son in the back, chatting away, I thought about that morning two years ago when my dad called me. "Mom had a difficult night," he said, "You should probably come." I was on the bridge. It seems a fitting metaphor for my life, being on a bridge at that moment. I was crossing over -- life before, with my mom, and life after. I know my husband feels the same about his life, before and after.

My mom was many things to me, most of which cannot be summed up in words. What she was to this community, of course, was "an adult adoptee advocating for her rights." Before she died from malignant melanoma at the age of 63, she had fought for nearly 15 years for justice and truth in the world of adoption. To be honest, this was only a small part of what she was to me, but it was an important part. She asked me if I would consider continuing her blog after she died, "only once a month or so, because I know how busy you are." I said I would. I am so grateful I did, because by writing here I have been introduced to many people of great integrity. I have also learned a lot. "Jenn, you wouldn't believe some of the stuff that goes on in adoption," my mom told me. She was right. In my two years of writing, I have discovered everything from simple ignorance to big-time greed and corruption, but I have also rediscovered the beauty of truth in the face of these things. Truth is a gem. Those who work to find it, will.

Berta Cáceres, mother and activist. 

It felt fitting then, that today on the front page of the Spanish newspaper El País (which I read because of my job as a Spanish teacher) there was an essay, La vida que no calla (Life That Will Not Be Silenced), by Olivia, Berta, Laura, and Salvador Cáceres. They are the children of Berta Cáceres, who was killed last month in Honduras. (Click here to read more: New Yorker article on Berta Cáceres). She was an internationally known environmental and human rights activist, much more famous than my mom, of course, but her children's words spoke for how I feel about my mom, about Berta, about anyone who speaks for truth. (The entire article can be found here: El País article on Berta Cáceres). I was especially moved by the last paragraph:


"El dolor no nos paraliza, no nos impide soñar, pero se volverá insoportable si el mundo calla y olvida a la guardiana de los ríos, a la cuidadora de la vida, a la que también nos cargó en el vientre, a nuestra madre, Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores."

The pain does not paralyze us, does not keep us from dreaming, but it will become unbearable if the world is quiet and forgets the guardian of the rivers, the keeper of life, she who also carried us in her womb, our mother, Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores. 

Tomorrow, the anniversary of the passing of my mom, and also the birthday of my husband's mother, I will not forget, I will remember, the beauty of the truth, the beauty of all moms, and especially mine, Susan Thomson Perry. 

Radical Listening and Adoption

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away in April of 2014, eight months after being reunited with her biological sisters. 

Mom and Joseph. The picture in his room for him to remember her by.

In October, adoption blogger (and adoptee) Amanda Transue-Woolston wrote a moving post called "Re-framing Searching as Radical Empathy" (Click here to read) about what it felt like, as an adoptee, to become a mother for the first time. My mom, too, wrote about how when my older sister was born she (my mom) stayed up that first night holding her and wondering about the woman to whom she was so closely tied, but knew nothing about.

I've been thinking about "radical empathy" and that October post lately as I ponder what I can possibly say about the Pennsylvania ACLU's opposition to HB162, a bill that would allow adult adoptees in Pennsylvania access to their original birth certificates. The bill passed the House in December 187-7 (though with a clause included about an adoptee having to have a high school diploma or GED in order to access her birth certificate. What?!) and now goes to the Senate, where it faces intense opposition by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Pennsylvania ACLU. A friend forwarded me the letter that was sent to all members of the House of Representatives by ACLU Legislative Director Andy Hoover back in December, and I have been pondering ever since what I could possibly say in response. What can I say about a letter that ignores the personal stories of so many birth parents and adoptees, including my mom, and then insults them by arguing that "The fairest process in adoption is one that respects the wishes of all parties. Current law accomplishes that"? (My mom is dead, and only by a miracle do I now know and have as part of my life her extended family, so no, no, no, current law does not accomplish that). What to say to an organization that apparently thinks it completely fine that my mom had no rights when it came to knowing her true identity? That would ignore the testimony of thousands upon thousands around the country (and world) to the contrary? After more than a month of reflection, I think the answer, really, is nothing.  If nothing that has been said thus far has moved them, then I do not think that they are really listening.  And what is needed now is radical listening.

We all know what it feels like when someone really listens to us. And we all know what it feels like when someone doesn't. I've had both experiences when telling my mom's story. Once, a new neighbor, now a good friend, came by my house and noticed a picture on the bulletin board of my mom and her two sisters. She asked about it. I told her a little (there were other people over, and I tend not to go into the whole, complicated story in social situations), but I added, "It's an interesting story. I'll have to tell you some time." The next week, as we sat on the front porch while our kids played on the lawn, she asked for the story, and I told her. I did not get into the politics. I just told her about my mom, and how she had to sit across the desk from some twenty-something social worker who had access to the truth of  my mom's life right there, in the filing cabinet at her side, but she couldn't share that truth with my mom, because one phone call, one scared no from her biological mother, meant that she couldn't. My mom had no rights to contact her mother herself. She had no rights to know her family, including her sisters , who wanted to know her.

"I can't imagine how that must have felt," my friend said. I was so grateful to her for listening, for really listening, and hearing the truth of my mom's experience, that I could have cried. When the ACLU is ready (will they ever be ready?) I will be grateful to them too. By listening, they would know that their stance is wrong, and harmful. By listening, they could understand. And by understanding, they could do what is right. For the sake of thousands of adoptees and biological parents in Pennsylvania, I hope that they do, and soon.

My mom and kids, July 2013. When her rights were violated as an adoptee, their rights to know their extended family, and their heritage, were violated as well. More than anything, though, we just wish she were still here with us. I am baffled by the position of the ACLU that "current law" (law that did not allow my mom access to her family, which gave her access to her full medical history) "protects the rights of all involved." It does not.