Fog of Adoption

Validation

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Adoptees may yearn for the memory of what was lost. The safety before the severing. The traditions, the heritage, siblings, or what we cannot return to unless we have the key.

Long after I searched for and found my natural mother at age forty, I heard the phrase, the fog of adoption. Our reunion brought us new roles, but not clarity. I saw no regret in her eyes. Why should I have expected it? Simply, she was thrilled that I looked for her. Did you hold me? I wanted to know. When I asked, I saw her effort to remember our intimacy. What she had lost forty years earlier. The hospital, yes. The circumstances of her arrival and departure, yes. My father, no. The fog, the veil, between full understanding and uncertainty served as permanent protection; even after confirmation of life and validation of our relationship, doubt remains.

Her absence had been thorough, irreparable. There would be no chance to see her child when she signed the paper, they told her. Final severance unraveled natal trust, covered the mirror, erased the memory, crushed and eradicated the tendencies and traits that tell us who we are. The effacement leaves us scarcely seen and barely heard.

© Mary Ellen Gambutti

I write memoir and personal essays as myself, and lyrical fiction as Islay Corwin. Here are our universal book links.

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