As my adoption and reunion story continues, I’ve changed some names, places, and dates.
As I shared last week, I began to wonder if I could talk to my mother about my reunion with my birthparents. She hadn’t wanted me to search for them.
Mom and Dad, like many people, had always been social drinkers. Nothing out of the ordinary. But as Mom approached her 80s, she unfortunately thought she could keep drinking like she had in her 40s. And no matter what my siblings or I or her doctor told her, she would not give up having a drink or two every day. This is what led to the fall that made her break her leg in 2013. And even after months in a rehabilitation facility, she would not stop drinking after she returned home.
Thanks to the help of Al-Anon, I realized there wasn’t anything we could do about her problem. My brother, my sister, and I noticed how it unreasonable it made her at times. We went up to help her with yard work and other tasks as much as we could, as well as doctor and dentist appointments when she needed someone to drive her.
One time in the summer of 2015 she asked me to drive up to spend the night before another dental procedure – the same evening before our family was to leave on vacation with friends in Tennessee. I was flabbergasted.
“Mom, I can’t,” I said in bewilderment. “We’re all carpooling together and leaving early in the morning from here.” I had spoken with Mom’s dentist that spring and knew that she didn’t need anyone to spend the night before her procedure. I’m not sure if she was feeling anxious or what was happening.
Mom was furious with me. She barely wanted to speak to me when I called her from the car the next afternoon to see how she was doing. Thanks to the help of my counselor a few weeks later, I knew I had done nothing wrong. But it also made me realize if Mom got upset over this one crazy thing, I knew she would never forgive me for searching for and finding my birthparents. I would have to stick to my plan and keep this a secret from her.
Another less emotional topic struck me during this time. I became focused on the nature versus nurture concept. I’m sure this happens with many adoptees. I now knew where I got my physical characteristics. I was tall and thin like my birth father and had his blue eyes. I had the pale skin and straight, light brown hair of my birth mother.
But where had I gotten my personality? My interests and talents? One obvious thing I had in common with my birth father Jack was my passion for protecting the environment. I remember being the one who was always turning out lights in our house even when I was little to save electricity. I also was outgoing like my birth father, but my dad had been that way as well. It was one of the reasons he was such a successful salesman. His customers had loved him.
One of my talents revolves around music. I grew up playing the piano and clarinet and took up singing later in life. I also have been involved in theater off and on throughout the years. Mom, Dad, Mark, and Vicky were all musically talented as well. I figured “nurture” was winning in this scenario!
I asked Jack once if perhaps he was musically inclined.
“I really never got to find out,” he replied. “With so many children in our family, there wasn’t enough time or money for any sort of music lessons.” Linda claimed that she couldn’t sing, and she didn’t know how to play an instrument. She had been a good athlete, however, something I certainly have never been. Although I found out I had some strong hoop dancing skills later in life!
No one else in my family loved public speaking, a passion I had gained through teaching the Dale Carnegie human relations course in my late 20s and early 30s. And no one else was anywhere near as obsessed with writing as I am.
Jack was of course comfortable speaking in public as a professor. Linda once told me he had never met a stranger. That’s what people often said about me.
I think, like what has been concluded thousands of times by psychologists, that I am certainly a product of both my genes and the environment I grew up in. It has been fascinating to me to finally learn my heritage and my birth families’ history. I found out recently, however, that nature certainly did play a large part of who I am. But that is for a future column.