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I was born 2-2-49 in Orlando, at
Orange Memorial Hospital, then taken to Jacksonville, as the
story goes. Was always told I was adopted and was raised
an only child. My adopted Mom passed away in '98 and
that's when I searched.
In Oct. '47 my sister was born in
Tampa area and she was placed with the same children's home.
Because of her being born first, she was in my files. I,
of course, am not in hers. We talked for nine months just
like we had always known each other, then I flew to Fla. to meet
her in person. It has been a wonderful and fulfilling
experience for the both of us and our combined families.
However, we have spent endless hours talking and trying to
figure out how to go further. It's actually hopeless
without the birth certificates. We get so worked up over
not being able to do anything, and about all the people in
government making decisions for us that lately we just try to
not even go that direction.
Our fathers are probably not the
same. One man came to each meeting after we were born.
The man for my sister was an old family friend, and said
"yes" he was the father, but the man who came for me
said neither "yes" or "no". I have
received from the home our family background for our
birthmother, birthfather, our birth-mother's aunts and two
uncles. Some are not but a few years older than we are.
I also have two uncles, and two step brothers on my birth father's
side.
Our birth mother was notified by
letter of our request to communicate with her from the social
worker in Aug.'98. But, several months later she left a
message on the answering machine of the social worker "that
she knew what the letter was about, but she did not wish to meet
us at this time". So, I used to check every year to
see if she had passed so we could go to the next person in line,
but now the children's home is asking for $ for every little
thing, even though I paid big bucks to start out with.
Since they moved their headquarters to Jacksonville and do not
have separate offices around the state they have become very
generic and "cold", its definitely a major business
now. I can remember my Dad taking me there when he was
alive, he was a large contributor even after I was adopted by
him.
Anyway, we felt the social worker
let us down, by not following up with a one on one call to our
birth mother. We felt the answering machine was just not
the proper communication that was needed. Our message to
her was that we did not want another mother after all this time,
we just wanted to meet any siblings that would be interested in
meeting us, or to see who we looked like or had the same
interest as us.
I know some people say we should
just be blessed to have found and we each are,.truly. There are
natural questions we need answers to. We need to
fill those empty places inside us. Because of the response
of the birth-mother this is a deep, dark secret on her part and
she probably has more children she does not wish to share this
past with. But, what about the birthfather - does he get a
choice? Oh well, this could go on forever.
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