Fragmented

An Adoptee's Story

Happenstance

Out of the blue, like the sapphire September sky, the accidental prophecy of place and time, meant to be, raison d’etre, designated the twenty -first, the first of autumn. Unequal to the task – a mother’s un-joyful occurrence. My unloved mother, loved, unloved, left alone, again alone, abandoned, with nothing but the potential of me, first she, then me. Once before, twice, and three. Had she, on rising from her birth ward bed, considered beyond surrender? A plan intend? Had she thought those papers would hold the facts of our fated circumstances? Didn’t she imagine they’d be muddled, muddied by illegitimacy? Was that her intent? Fabricated, flimsy, flat-out false, filed within a mystery hour – no tiny footprints made? Her baby girl.

The Wound

She heard the music from inside the womb: her mother’s gospel songs, the radio’s twang, the jukebox blare, the honky-tonk guitar. The shouts. Clank of bottles, and sugar taste of beer. She crept under her heart where she felt her mother’s rocking laughter, or a surge of her fear. The grip of her dread. The clutches of her sobs.

A System

The State had a system for poor mothers, mothers who worked in textile mills, like Conestee and Poe, Pendleton and Monaghan — carders and bobbin-winders — women who lived in villages along rail-tracks near mill-dams, waterfalls, in the rented shabby saltbox shanties of millworker daddies and mammas, who worked for meager pay. The State had a system for unwed mothers. Social workers urged, suggested, persuaded mothers to give up their babies. “The agency will find her a good home” they said. “A married couple will want your baby, and give her a better life” said the system, the agency, the church, and her parents. “Leave her here. Leave the paperwork to the lawyers. Only sign — here”.

An Adoptee’s Riddle of Belonging

A formula of lies obliterated my origins

and gave me a chance for a better life.

What life might I have had?

Removed from the powerless

Given to one who had what I needed to live,

but she wasn’t mine.

Where were mine—the lost ones?

All were left behind in a riddle of un-belonging.

Do-Overs

Adoption Decree

The party of the first part hereby gives and grants the party of the second part the complete custody, management, care, and control during its minority, together with the complete right and power as one in loco parentis to provide for and consummate the adoption of the said child by such person or persons as in the sole discretion of the party of the second part it may deem proper for the best interests and welfare of the said child ...

Do-overs

The original, long-form Birth Certificate is locked away by Vital Statistics. The Certificate of Birth and Baptism issued by Saint Anne’s Church in Rock Hill states Mary Ellen Caffrey was christened February 4, 1952, by Father Sharples. Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Pat, the adoptive father’s siblings, are the Godparents, by proxy.

Ruth Ann has lost her mother, her name, her birthplace. Her birthplace is immaterial in her new life as Mary Ellen. Let’s say she was born in Rock Hill. The Certificate of Baptism and Birth is issued by church, not state. The State keeps the real data, the real names. Rebirthed, re-branded like a commodity in a court. Her name exchanged for the name of the chosen child. Her new name will fit nicely into the new Air Force family. They had the power to perform the do-over. Born of a Baptist and converted in one fell swoop. Ruth Ann to Mary Ellen. It would have mattered. Names matter. Double names are popular in the 1950s: Mary Lou, Mary Beth, Mary-Jo, Sue Beth, Sue Ellen. Ellen Mary—the dead mother of the adoptive father—her new name is an upside-down do-over. A mirrored inversion of someone she’d never know. The infant breathed, bloomed, grew, and was called Ruth Ann during her first five months and emerged from the do-over newly certified.

The child’s rights have been subsumed and sworn over, and with these words under official seal, one child’s life is replaced, substituted for another. The birth mother’s name is omitted and deleted from the process when she signed the papers to release me; Ruth Ann becomes Mary Ellen and Ruth Ann as a legal entity is effaced.

Vital Statistics locks away the original birth certificate. What does Ruth Ann lose besides her name? Her mother, her family, her heritage, her medical history, her true place of birth, her origins—her identity, because she has been remade, rebirthed, rebranded, fictionalized, and exchanged in a do-over—in one fell swoop.

©Mary Ellen Gambutti