This reply to your post became rather long, so I decided to just do this. Laughs...I imagine that might happen often with us?
Yes, it's (the poem entitled Silent Demands) about Mark. It was written around the time I found him, met him, talked to him for the first time.
It was a strange time for us all, wasn't it? I'd like to know what you remember...how you felt...what that experience was like for you. Will you tell me now?
I remember you saying to me, "You know, Mom...he's not legally your son." You emphasized the "legal" part...somehow that was important in your mind. You were so young...13 years ago now...so not quite 10 yet. I remember thinking...ahhh...he's frightened that Mark will usurp his place in my life. I spent a lot of time reassuring you...in any way that I could...that that wouldn't happen. I even talked to Mark about it then. He wanted very much to just be part of...not take the place of anyone.
He feels such a kinship with you...different than with Suni. I think...because you're both male? There's a different connection there for the two of you...plus the time you spent hunting with him...staying with him without the rest of us around. You got to develop a different relationship with him than what Suni has. Siblings, but not siblings.
How odd is that for you? I never hid the fact that I had a child before you, and Suni were born. Chucklin'...as a matter of fact, you used to put me in rather awkward positions telling other people that you had a brother, but he didn't live with us. I was then left to explain...something...about that. There weren't many people I talked about Mark to. Such a wall of silence around being a BirthMom...yanno? It involves so many levels of who we are...as women, as mothers, as daughters, as friends, lovers...the sifnificance of that loss is a profound one, T.
Well-meaning people will say, "Yeah, but you found him...he's in your life now." The 'now'...can never...will never...fill the void of the loss of 'then'...of holding him in my arms, rocking him to sleep, watching him grow, and become a man. Lost forever to me...and to him. That kind of statement is really a very thoughtless comment. How can they know?
I've even had people say to me, "Well...what kind of life could you have given him at such a young age?"...and references to my younger years when I was using drugs, and drinking. I drank/drugged to drown...to dull...the pain of losses...of that loss (among others)...of the grief in which I was left to flounder. I didn't know how to express it...wasn't 'allowed' to talk about him...of that loss...so I didn't. Instead? I drugged/drank myself into oblivion...so could forget for a moment.
I held my grief very close. I held the sadness deep within. I held the overwhelming pain I felt at his loss...deeply...buried...though it would seep out from time to time. I held him only in my dreams, and in the one memory I have of holding him while I was still in the hospital.
I lost a very large piece of me when I lost him.
Do you know...I think I've told you this...but I believe you'll understand it better now, T. I know your experience with S, and Ro was different than mine...that you weren't/aren't me...and Mark. But my experience in this is largely why I fought as hard as I did for you...for your rights as Ro's father...to establish those rights in such a way that they could never be taken away from you. My rights were taken away from me...I wasn't given choices...or allowed a say in something so significantly life-altering. I wouldn't have that for you...ever. I don't think you understood that...not then, but maybe now?
Anyway...off for the day. Love you Babes. Yer Motha
1 comment:
Motha, I wrote a blog in response, as I had imagined we would begin doing, lol. Unfortunately, I do not remember much about how I felt during that period. I wrote about what I remember, yet it seems choppy and pieced together to me. I love you and hope you had a nice day!
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