| Welcome to Fragments of a Life. These posts tell my story in pieces—starting with childhood and the people, places, and experiences that shaped me. Some are memories; others explore what I understand differently now. You can read each piece on its own or follow the connections between them. There’s no required starting point. Visit the Fragments Explorer to find connected stories and follow whatever catches your interest. |
The Two Books
I used to say I had always known I was adopted.
I do not remember a single day when Mom and Dad sat me down and overturned everything I thought I knew.
Somewhere around six or seven or eight, though, the fact began to mean something different.
There is a difference between knowing a word and realizing the word applies to you.
Gregg was adopted too. He was five years older and had been Mom and Dad’s son before I came along. He seemed to know the rules before I even noticed there were rules.
In my memory, Mom and Dad gave us two books at roughly the same time. One was about adoption. The other explained the birds and the bees. The explanations arrived close enough together that they collided in my head. One explained where babies came from.
The other explained why I came from somewhere else.
I suddenly wondered whether Mom and Dad were really my parents and whether Gregg was really my brother. I did not have an adult definition of really.
I had the question, and the question scared me.
A book could not make them strangers. But it could show me that there were people involved in my beginning whom I could not picture.
I wanted to ask whether Mom and Dad knew my birth mother. Had they talked to her? Did they know anything about my birth father?
There were people who might be able to tell me something. They were right there in my house.
I was scared of what they might say. I was also scared of what they might hear in the question.
To me, curiosity seemed capable of spoiling the gratitude.
I wanted their help understanding how I had become their son. I didn’t want them to hear that as wanting a different family.
Gregg told me not to ask. He said questioning Mom and Dad about adoption would hurt their feelings. I don’t remember his exact words. What I took from him was: keep the questions to yourself. Don’t make this harder for them.
He had been given the adoption story too. I don’t know what he made of it or how he knew what Mom and Dad would feel.
I loved him. I believed him.
I never put his prediction to the test. In my child’s mind, the possible hurt already counted as the consequence.
Finding out more about myself did not feel like a good enough reason to risk making Mom and Dad feel bad.
Not asking did not stop the questions.
I had a book that explained adoption. I still didn’t know how to ask about mine.
Leave a Reply