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Parallel Lives

For adoptees, it’s hard to resist family comparisons. I can’t help but compare my sheltered childhood on the southwest side of Chicago to what I know of my biological family’s life in the suburbs north of the city.

My family’s bungalow on South Sacramento Avenue and my birth mother Lillian’s home on Alice Drive are only 35 miles apart, but the two families might as well have lived on separate planets. That’s how different they were.

My mother, Claire, and father, Bob, didn’t work outside the home. Dad was a retired linotype operator and Mom was a homemaker. They were in their 50s when they adopted me days after I was born. A year later, they adopted my newborn sister, Melissa. This was in the 1960s. Mom and Dad were unlikely parents to two little school girls who never knew they were adopted. Were they our grandparents? Claire and Bob bristled every time they heard that question.

They had plenty of time to supervise Melissa and me. They were helicopter parents before anyone used that expression to describe annoying moms and dads who hover constantly over their kids. Claire and Bob were ahead of their time.

good photo of Claire + her sisters
My adoptive mother, Claire, center, with her sisters, El, left, and Marie

We didn’t get away with anything because our parents watched us like hawks. Dad drove us to and from school every day. We were not allowed to play with the kids across the street because Claire thought they were too “street-y.” Melissa and I were goody-goodies not because we wanted to be but because we didn’t have a choice. I read a lot of books because there was nothing better to do. In the summers, I rode my bike around Marquette Park over and over again. I went to the library for more books. I counted the days until school started. Time passed very slowly on South Sacramento. I dreamed about moving out of that boring prison and getting a taste of the real world.

On Alice Drive, my sister and her three brothers had fun and freedom. They went on family outings and played with little supervision. Their parents, Lillian and Dick, both worked and were not around enough to watch the kids closely. Sometimes my siblings got into mischief.

 

Lillian when she graduated bigger
My birth mother, Lillian, in 1953

Lillian’s pregnancy with me may have been the last straw for the marriage. I was not Dick’s child. She and Dick divorced not long after I was born. Their breakup hurt the family. My sister’s grades dropped. There was more pain for the children when Lillian got angry and lashed out at them. As teenagers, my brothers and sister got into drugs and sex and no doubt rock and roll. One of my brothers, a brainy boy who got good grades, took his life. Lillian was never the same after her boy died.

That’s one thing Lillian and Claire had in common. My adoptive parents had a biological son, Bobby, who also died young – of a kidney ailment. Claire and Bob were devastated. They withdrew from their family and the world. They never left the house, not even to buy food. They had somebody deliver the groceries. Adopting me and Melissa brought my parents back to diapers, baby food and the real world. It helped them heal.

I resented having parents who smothered me but maybe having a child die is what made Mom and Dad so protective of their daughters.

I didn’t have any boyfriends in high school and didn’t have a drink until my senior year. Melissa and I graduated and went to college. We never got to go away to school – Mom and Dad wouldn’t allow that – but we graduated from college, something neither of our parents had done. Claire and Bob were proud.

My life never intersected with Lillian’s. She was only 48 when she died in 1983. Not long after her death, another one of her sons died after a long struggle with injuries he suffered in an auto accident.

I wonder how different my life would have been if I had grown up with Lillian and her family. Would I be the person I am today with different parents and siblings?

All I know for sure is I am grateful to Lillian for giving me life and extremely grateful to Claire and Bob for adopting me. Maybe their overly protective but loving style of parenting was just what I needed.

 

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Coming on Monday: “Parallel Lives”

I grew up in a modest bungalow on the Southwest Side of Chicago. My biological family  lived in an unassuming home in the suburbs  north of Chicago. The houses are only 35 miles apart, but the two families might as well have lived on separate planets. That’s how different they were.

Read more about our parallel lives on Monday.

good photo of Claire + her sisters
My mother, Claire, center, with her sisters, El, left, and Marie
Lillian when she graduated bigger
My first mother, Lillian

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Who is Bio Dad?

When you don’t know who your biological parents are, you jump on any little scrap of information you can get.

I’ve talked to several people who knew my mother, including her best friend, Nancy. During our first conversation, she assured me she had no idea who my bio father could be. The second time we talked, she told me she never knew my father but very casually mentioned he was a golfer. A golfer?  A professional golfer? A suburban guy who liked to putt around on the golf course for fun? Nancy didn’t know. How long did he and my mother go out? I asked. Just a couple times, Nancy said. Hmmm. Very interesting.

good golfing photo
Courtesy of Flickr/Sean MacEntee

That’s all I know about my father. My mother was married and had four kids when she met him. She worked as a waitress and cook at a number of bars, restaurants and a very nice private club with a golf course in the suburbs north of Chicago. Did she meet my father at one of those places? Possibly. I don’t know where she was working in the summer of 1963, which is when I was conceived.

I hope a DNA test will move my search in the right direction. Using Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder test kit, I scraped samples of DNA from the insides of my cheeks and sent the results back to the company. Family Tree DNA will contact me if my sample matches any samples in the company’s database.

I know where my mother came from and what her childhood and adult life were like. I have a picture of her in my head and several photos of her on my desk.

Dad is a mystery man. Unless I find someone who knew him, someone who can tell me what he was like, I’ll always picture my father as some featureless guy in a golf shirt toting a cart full of clubs and flirting with married waitresses.

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Counting on DNA

Recently I wrote about hitting a dead end in my search for bio dad and other blood relatives. Well, the dead ends continue. Last week I learned one of my birth mother’s closest friends is deceased.

Nobody said searching for biological family would be fun. In my situation, I’ve learned many relatives and other potentially good sources are no longer alive. It’s depressing and frustrating.

I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. I’ve read about DNA tests and how they can help adoptees track down relatives. The cost of these tests has also come down in recent years. I asked for recommendations and ended up- spending $104 for Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder test kit. This particular test can help men and women find biological relatives on both their mother’s and father’s sides within the last five generations.

dna test kit
Courtesy of Family Tree DNA

The help desk at Family Tree DNA told me the Family Finder autosomal DNA test is the only option for women interested in finding out about their father’s side of the family. Autosomal DNA is the only type of DNA inherited by women from their dads. It’s actually a mix of genetic material from both the mother and the father.

Of course, the test has its limits. I will only be matched up with family members who have also taken the test and the relatives I find are more likely to be cousins than brothers or sisters. My DNA will be compared to other people’s DNA in the company’s database, which holds more than 650,000 records. The test is painless. I will submit samples of my DNA taken from the inside of my cheek. No needles, thank you!

Maybe I’ll hook up with bio dad’s nieces and nephews and maybe they’ll fill in some blanks for me. Maybe they’ll slam the door in my face. Either way, I’ll be happy to come away with new information about my roots.

The test results will also shed light on my nationality, something I’ve wondered about ever since I found out I was adopted. The results will provide a breakdown of my ethnic makeup by percent. That’s pretty cool.

According to the New  York Times, a growing number of adopted adults are taking DNA tests in the hope of connecting with family. Have you used a DNA test to find family? What was your experience like?

 

 

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Pictures of My Mother

birth mother

Everything I knew about my birth mother’s life was based on what I had learned in a two-week whirlwind of document discoveries and long distance conversations with newly found relatives.

I was hungry to know what the woman, who died 30 years ago this month, looked like. For days I waited anxiously for the mail carrier to show up with a packet of vintage photographs.

“Your mother’s pictures are here,” my husband, Tom, announced after picking up the mail one day last week. I ran upstairs from my basement office.

Tom handed me a thick envelope. I started to cry.

Nobody’s life story is complete without photos. Inside the envelope, the faded pictures, dating back to the 1970s, show a woman with black hair and dark eyes. She’s rather slender for someone who had given birth to five children. Lillian alternately looks happy, haggard, tired and bored in photos showing her with her husband, surrounded by his family, with her sons and daughter.

The nicest photo, probably taken by a professional photographer, shows my mother looking attractive and chic in a sleeveless black and white dress, a curl of black hair on her pale forehead, standing near her husband who’s wearing a suit jacket and tie. Looks like they were at a party. Maybe their wedding day?

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My mother, Lillian, with husband, Howard

Another one of my favorites shows my mother standing alone in front of a lake, holding three large fish in both hands. She looks happy.

Lil Fishin' cropped

Back of Lil Fishing

Lillian did a lot of living in her 48 years. She even became a grandmother, which is mind-boggling to me. Her granddaughter told me about the happy times she had with my mother, who took her fishing. Lillian skinned and filleted their catch of the day.

The photos flesh out Lillian’s story for me. It wasn’t all tragic, which is the impression I came away with from early conversations with her family members. Looking at the photos, I can see she had some ordinary, even fun moments. I am relieved.

Wife, mother, awesome cook. Hard-working waitress, drinker, angler.  My mother wore a lot of hats. I will always treasure the photos that bring her to life in my imagination.

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Hitting a Dead End

I hit a dead end in my search for bio dad. Ok, that’s a stretch. Finding my biological father seems next to impossible so I’ll be happy to get a few nuggets of information about the man, who’s a stranger to me.

Last week, I tried to reach a distant cousin. As an adult, she lived with her mother for a while and her mother was very close to my adoptive mom.  I have a hunch there could be a family tie linking my birth parents to my adoptive parents. My cousin might know something, I thought.

I left a couple of messages for people with my cousin’s last name in Green Bay, Wisconsin, her last known place of residence. The phone rang at 11:30 one night. I was in bed. My cousin’s son was on the phone. A little groggy, I explained what I was looking for. Sorry, he said, but my mother passed away a little over a year ago. She was about 65.

Damn! Why didn’t I reach out to my cousin sooner? I should have started this mission a long time ago.

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Courtesy of Flickr/Al-HikesAZ

Continue reading “Hitting a Dead End”

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When Adoptions Fail

I read a shocking report by Reuters about  adoptive parents who use the Internet to find new homes for children they no longer want.

The article is the first in a five-part series by Reuters that examines America’s underground market for adopted children. According to the report, parents are so eager to unload their kids that they hand them off to people they barely know. No screenings required. How horrible and dangerous for the children.

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Courtesy of Flickr/Colorfulexpressions

Children adopted from overseas are especially vulnerable to these unauthorized exchanges. As the article points out, Americans often don’t know what they’re getting into when they adopt children from other countries. They don’t know the child’s complete history. When problems arise at home, parents don’t have a support system in place. Bailing out seems like the best option for some desperate parents.

Adopting a child is not like purchasing a big-screen TV. You can’t take your baby back to the store if you’re unhappy. Once you adopt a child, you make it work no matter how difficult things get.

Clearly we need to do more in this country to support adoptive families and make it hard for parents to abandon their kids like unwanted possessions.

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Questions for My Father

Now that I know something about my birth mother, I am eager to find out about my biological father.

I grew up thinking I was German on my adoptive father’s side and Polish on my mother’s side. Cousins tell me I definitely look like I could be a biological relative.

My mother had dark eyes and black hair and may have been part Native American. I have blue eyes, naturally dark brown hair and fair skin. Maybe I look more like my father than my mother.

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Courtesy of Flickr/Enigma Photos

Continue reading “Questions for My Father”