Last year, I couldn't stand it any longer so asked my 22 year old birth son what he thought of me. We have had an open adoption for most of his life but I have spent very little quality time with him. He has always known how I feel about him but has never reciprocated those feelings. I wanted to find out if I even mattered to him or if I was just an obligation...and his response, although heart wrenching, was what I needed to hear.
I have spent every day since his birth living for him - hoping he would one day want some sort of relationship with me. And selfishly, I hoped that he would somehow miss me, yet still be grateful for the life he was given. Over the years, his amazing family included me in their lives. I am sane today by the grace of God and because of their commitment to me as well as to our son. But I discovered later from his adoptive mother that each reunion caused feelings of sadness and confusion to surface all over again for him as it did for me. It was a wound re-opened, causing a need to grieve the loss all over again. But it was worth it to me just to have him in my life.
As he grew older, became independent and able to make his own decisions, he reluctantly agreed to seeing me when I would visit his state. Each visit, especially the last one, was amazing. We interacted well and it was clear that he enjoyed our time together just as much as I did. But in the past few years he has more often than not, ignored my invitations to interact and found excuses to avoid a visit.
When he was younger, my constant desire for interaction and reunion was facilitated by his adoptive parents. I lived my life in anticipation of the next letter or picture in the mail or with hopes for another reunion. The desire to see my son came to fruition because they made it happen. But for the past few years, my longing to see him, my yearning to hold him in my arms as a mother holds her child, my desire for him to acknowledge me as another mother of sorts and my anticipation of reunions have all been denied, causing enough let down and heartache that I have had to question whether or not my heart could continue on this birth mother journey.
That brings us back to the question I asked him last fall. After realizing that I had been living my life on hold in hopes of a relationship with him and still seeing him as my son, I knew I needed to re-define my relationship with him and my role in his life and find some answers so that I could begin living again - with or without him. When I didn't get the response that I was hoping for, I knew I had to make some significant changes in my life if I was to ever move forward and have a future. I knew it was time to "let go" and attempt to "move on."
I have heard from him twice since then and most of the time, I am okay with that. Since I made a conscious effort to "move on" with my life, my heart doesn't ache as much. I rarely sense a deep longing to see him or know him better. I have been able to tend to the issues in my life that I neglected for so long.
While addressing coping strategies of a birth mother post-relinquishment, one author said, "Sometimes the best a birth mother can do is to remain in denial and numbness for the rest of her adult life." Perhaps that's more realistic. I wonder if those of us birth mothers who have "let go" are choosing denial. Denial of our heartache. Denial of our loss. Denial of the void in our lives. After all, it's not a pan of brownies that we are walking away from, but our very own flesh and blood. Part of our soul that will never be filled by anything other than the child that we once relinquished.
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