The girl no one is looking for
I would not have the success I have found so far in my family search without help from my newly discovered extended family. My network of new cousins are scattered from the Mid-Atlantic regions to the Southwest and several spots in between and they are scattered all over the branches of my family tree.
Public records are a great tools and Ancestry dot com is a godsend for uncovering the past, but nothing resonates on an emotional level like a first-person account of history. Hearing stories about grandfathers and grandmothers from other family members is the most fulfilling way to discover roots.
Yesterday I spent nearly two hours chatting on the phone with a delightful cousin in Wisconsin who regaled me with a rich account of my formerly long-lost kin. She sent me old photos of our shared family, including this one of my great-grandmother who looks to me exactly like you would want your Midwestern grandmother to look.
Another thing she shared is that we descend from a long line of highly intuitive women. Listen to your inner voice, my cousin advised. Your first instinct should be heeded. We are guided, she said, by the brave and sensitive females in our bloodline.
Typically I get one of two outcomes to my inquiries to my DNA matches. I either get invaluable help and a sense of belonging or I am completely ignored.
After reaching out to a second cousin a couple of weeks ago via 23andMe, we determined I was likely part of his father’s side of the family and alas, he was not well informed about those ancestors. He referred me to his father’s widow, his step-mother, for help with those names.
I sent her a cheery email explaining that I was communicating with her stepson and what information I hoped she could share. A few days later I got a polite but firm HARD STOP from her.
This was part of her reply:
“While I understand your desire to find out who they are, I also recognize, as a closed adoption, your birth parent(s) chose anonymity. I strongly believe that every individual has the right to privacy, and it is not my right to interfere with the decisions they made when you were born.
I cannot in good conscience share the information you seek.”
My initial reaction was to write back and ask if she suffered from saddle sores from being perpetually perched on her high horse.
But I took the more professional route and explained myself a bit more, thanked her for reply and told her I respected her choice.
Of course — me being me — almost every day since then I have heard her words played over and over in my head because in my brain there is no decision too insignificant to not warrant a full post-mortem. Second-guessing myself is my superpower.
After all, I have known for more than 30 years that I was adopted. I never attempted to locate my birth family and one of the reasons is exactly what Duchess I-Know-What’s-Best-For-You cited in her email. I should respect the privacy of people who made a difficult decision.
And in the chamber of my brain where all my insecurities throw a daily rave, I do question if I should be looking for people who, by all evidence I can find, are not looking for me now and have never looked for me.
There is a possibility that I was not really wanted. These were the days before Roe, when choices for women were severely limited.
What if my conception was not a consensual event or, worse yet, an act of violence? What if giving up a baby was such a traumatic experience that my birth mother would just like to purge it from her heart and mind?
Or, as my darkest insecurity screams, what if it just me being me that spurred her decision?
What if my birth mother was ahead of her time and subscribed to the Marie Kondo craze 50 years before it was created? What if I was just clutter in an otherwise tidy life? What if I did not spark joy, so she sent to the donate pile?
Yes, I do really think these things. On loop, actually. It’s exhausting.
However, I am going to do my best now to delete the diatribe of Princess Ivory Tower from my emotional playlist and turn up the volume of my own intuition. There are a myriad of reasons of how and why I came into this world when I did, why I ended up where I did, and why I am in the place I am now.
Other people have been making decisions for me about what I am entitled to know about my life for more than a half century. I am summoning the inner courage now to claim my right to know my origin story.
And I will listen to my intuition about this, because maybe it’s being guided by a long line of empathic women.
