I may just look like a regular person, but I come with lore. I never tire of my own choose-your-own-adventure story. I am a puzzle that I’ve slowly been putting together since I was young, like Harry Potter, still waiting to break into the Department of Mysteries to find out the prophecy. I live cinematically and with a purpose: to learn, integrate, and share the lessons, in a movie where the mystery being solved is me. It’s no wonder I’m so self-interested; it’s been a juicy story from the start.
At four years old, I nuzzle my mom’s soft neck in the La-Z-Boy while she tells me, once again, the story of when she went to “pick me out.”
“We wanted a baby for so long,” she says in her lilting Appalachian, “and one day in August, after waiting years and years, they finally called us.” She’s been telling me this story as long as I’ve been able to understand words, but I listen as if it’s the first time.
“I went right out to Belk’s and got you the prettiest little white dress, and we drove a few hours to meet you. There was a glass window with so many little babies behind it, and I saw one that was the prettiest baby of all. I said to your dad, ‘Glenn, I hope that’s her!’ but I doubted it would be. They led us to a room and told us to wait, and then they brought you in. You were the one I had wanted! And you were so tiny I was afraid I might break you. When we brought you home, there were people lined up around the block wanting to hold you. It made me sad, because I hardly got a turn!”
She keeps rocking me, and sings me “Down in the Valley” while I fall asleep.
I continue believing I’m that special baby who came with a mission, which leads me to distress when I fall short. I do not consider any alternative spin on this story, the way some adoptees do. I never feel discarded, only chosen. Yet, there is something in me that always tells me I need to prove myself. I strive to be exceptional in everything, like the school spelling bee, where I, a second-grader, win a trophy against fourth graders. For a moment on that stage, I am as far as I can get from any deep-down dirty feelings of not fitting in anywhere. I am not thinking of my frizzy hair that my mom can’t tame because I’m the only one in my family who has it. I’m the smartest kid on this stage, and everyone is clapping for me.
These are the facts. I am celebrated by my teachers and loved and cared for by my parents. I play with my little sister, who looks up to me. She came from my mom’s belly and we look nothing alike, which doesn’t bother me at all; I love her so much. We have aunts and uncles and cousins who all love us equally, though our personalities are very different. She is a tomboy, super tough and active. I’m a sensitive creative who goes off on my own and makes music and art and lives out fantasies. All of this is supported.
I am nine years old when my best friend at school, Brooke, is boasting about how much she looks like her mom. “You kind of look like your mom, too,” she says.
“Oh, really? I’m adopted,” I say.
She points an expression at me that I’ve never been given before: Pity? Disgust? “I’m sorry,” she says. It’s a negative reaction to a statement that, to me, is a simple fact. I wonder if I should feel bad; I suddenly feel like I’m not a real person.
“Why are you sorry?” I say. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Who’s your real mom?”
“My mom is my real mom,” I say.
I tell Mom about it when I get home and she says, “Next time anybody says something like that to you, tell ‘em, ‘Your parents got stuck with you. Mine picked me out.’”
On my sister’s birthday, my mom gives me a present. She does the same for Holly on my birthday. “I don’t want either of you to feel like I love the other one more,” she says.
I’m 11 years old and middle school is horrible. Brooke has abandoned me as a friend and, along with her new sporty friends, she treats me terribly. I wonder what’s wrong with me, and don’t feel at home in my skin. The cheerleaders are the pretty girls, the basketball players are the cool girls, and I am…not. I have two friends who are kind, because they, too, are super intelligent dreamers who love to do plays and write poetry like me. I am interested in boys and love watching shows about high school and romance. I wish someone would “get” me like Zack and Kelly get each other. I go to my mom’s office after school and draw. One day she brings me a copy of this poem, printed on rainbow paper.
Legacy of an Adopted Child (author unknown)
Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives shaped to make yours one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first gave you life, the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for Love, the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you the seed for talent, the other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first smile, the other dried your tears.
One gave you up, it was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child and was led straight to you.
And now you ask me through your tears
the age old question through the years,
"Heredity or environment, which am I the product of?"
Neither my darling, neither,
Just two different kinds of Love.
I like the poem. It feels true to me. But I don’t hang it up, even though it’s in a frame. I just put it in the top drawer of my dresser and I see it once in a while.
I reinvent myself as someone bright and colorful and confident. Brooke has been trying to be nice to me again, because she sees my power, but I’m not interested. I’m 12 years old, at a school Christmas assembly where my choir is performing. I sit at the piano, accompanying the choir in front of the whole school. My hands dance all over the keys; it’s muscle memory.
Mom was able to leave work and come see. She’s so proud of me as I join her in the bleachers. “Nobody else in our family could carry a tune in a bucket,” she tells Brooke’s mom, who is stunned by my abilities.
“Why did you decide to put me in piano lessons?” I ask her later.
“They told me your birth mother played the piano. That’s why I went out and bought one when you were little. And even when you were four years old, when I was singing to your sister in the rocking chair, you would go over and pick out the songs on the piano.”
In my history class when I’m 13, we’re talking about genealogy. “My ancestors were from the Cherokee nation,” Katie says.
“My great great great grandmother came over on the Mayflower,” says Jennifer proudly.
“I’m Irish and Scottish,” brags Stephanie, showing off one of those Celtic rings.
Why does it matter? I think, almost hostile at how much they care. We’re supposed to do this whole family tree project and I can’t understand the point. I don’t think my family could trace their lineage any further than “across the mountain”—not that it would apply to me either way. I’m a blank slate, I guess. I’m nothing.
I’m 16, hiding out in the corner by the TV at my grandma’s house while about eight of Dad’s twelve-or-so living brothers and sisters are milling about with their kids, eating chicken-and-dumplings. I could not feel more like an alien. I am so vastly different from everyone here, in my looks, in my desires, in my bones.
I guess everyone has felt this way, but this “sore thumb” feeling is something that follows me wherever I go. I have absorbed it and spun it into a life philosophy of trying to stand out on purpose. This makes me very popular at school, where I wear outrageous clothes, and carry a video camera everywhere to pretend my life is a movie. I’ve had a boyfriend for almost three years, and we are so close. We are the top students in the sophomore class.
My mom asks me sometimes, “Are you ever curious about where you came from?”
I answer, “no,” not meeting her eyes.
“Well, if you ever do want to know anything, I will tell you everything I know,” she says. “I have some papers I can give you that might answer some questions.”
But I wasn’t kidding; I never think about it. Maybe someday I’ll be interested.
When I’m about to turn 18, I am suddenly a little curious. I ask Mom for the files she talked about, and she opens a safety deposit box in her closet, handing me a yellow folder packed with stapled documents.
“Tell me if you have any questions,” Mom says. “They weren’t supposed to use her name at all, but they left it on one of the pages.”
I sit on the floor and pull the stack of papers out of the folder.
First is a “Presentation Summary” that refers to me as “The Child” and describes me as “an unborn child. Anticipated delivery date June 24, 1984.” The pages are typed on a typewriter, copied by a ditto machine. It looks like a screenplay. I picture myself once again not as a real person, but as a character.
I devour the next few sections which tell about “The Birth Mother.” I take in phrases: “of English and Irish heritage, age 18,” “an extrovert, who gets along very well with people,” “a very talented young lady who enjoys reading.”
I’m not as interested in “the child’s” birth father, but that’s just as well, as he was not interested in me either. It says, “the birth father was told of the pregnancy but his reaction was that of total indifference. The birth mother then advised the birth father that she was having an abortion.” At this point, this stirs no emotion; it’s just a story.
“It is planned that the birth child will be committed to the Cabinet for Human Resources by the Circuit Court.” I picture them taking the baby to the court house and putting it in a cabinet.
The rest of the papers are of legal nature: a birth certificate, which lists my mother and father as the two I grew up knowing, and lists my birth town as their hometown, even though it wasn’t. There’s an adoption petition that describes my new parents, who “are of good moral character, of reputable standing in the community, and are able to properly maintain and educate the child.” This petition has my name at the top, but I see what my mom was talking about: it doesn’t say “Pennington” for the baby’s last name. It has a different surname. That of my birth mother.
Since the internet is a tool I use a lot now, and public records are easy to find on any government site, I search that last name, along with my birthdate and the city I was born in. I find my birth record, and her first name. Figuring she might be married now, I search her first and last name in marriage records. I find a record, so now I know her current first and last name. I search that combination, along with the city I think she might reside in.
Up comes a photo, along with an email address, since her job is a public-facing one. I have no doubt it is her. The eyes are mine. My heart thuds, and I save her email address, telling no one.
It’s years before I think of it again. I’m living my life. I go to big acting competitions which I win, start bands, perform in music festivals, break up with my boyfriend, go off to college, get a new boyfriend. Soon I’m in creative writing classes and acting workshops that prompt me to ask all the hard questions, and the gaps in my own story begin to pull at me.
One day when I’m 19, I dig up the email address. I probably won’t even send anything. I’ll just leave it in my drafts folder for when I am brave. I just want to hear her story, to add it to my story, so I can figure out my purpose, get closer to the meaning of it all. I type out an email with the subject line “Suddenly.”
Hi Mrs. Cline,
You don’t know me, but (not to sound creepy) I do know you. I apologize for doing this, as I feel ridiculous and rude intruding on your inbox out of nowhere, but lately I have been very curious. My 20th birthday is coming up on August 3rd—this year I’ll be a junior in college—and the fact that I am still ignorant to where I came from has started to plague me like a little quarter-life crisis. I’ve always been happy, so the issue had only crossed my mind on a few occasions, but in a moment it slipped away again. Once, when I was in high school, I did some random internet sleuth-work and found you. They left your name on my papers by accident.
I know you’re married and have a life of your own, and thus I would never dream of complicating it by asking to meet you; I just wanted to see if you’d mind telling me about yourself so that I could personally weigh out this heredity/environment issue and determine where I obtained all my idiosyncracies.
There is so much about me I can’t explain, and as much as you have the right to withold this information from me, I also feel I have the right to know what you’re like. And what your family is like now. I’d also love to tell you about myself. I have, thus far, led a very intersting and accomplished existence, I think.
I wrote this thinking I wouldn’t send it, but it seems easy now just to click the button. Hmm. If I do, I’d really appreciate a response, even if you don’t want to include any details. Thanks anyway. I would have attached a picture, but I figured you might think it was a virus.
Ginger Pennington
I shakily hit “send.”
Part 2:
Whoa! Beautifully written! You are a gem. A true, unique and gifted artist! I love how we met. Will never forget!
This is a great story. I was going to wait for part 2 after my dental appointment, but I gatta hear it now. 🙂