Ode to a stranger
Dorothy must have been tall, and probably near-sighted. She may have bit her lower lip when she felt shy. Her little fingers probably bowed in at the last knuckle. She was of Irish and Scottish descent, and her mom played concert piano, they say. Dorothy had two daughters. The second was born in the Immanuel School of Nursing Orphanage 37 years ago tomorrow. It was 1961. She wasn't married. The baby was born and quickly shuttled to a nursery down the hall. The two never laid eyes on one another again. The baby was adopted by a couple whose childbearing was precluded by a nearly fatal ectopic pregnancy. Adoption was simpler in those days. Voluntary single parenthood was unthinkable. Abortion was the realm of bloodletters. Young pregnant women lived in homes for unwed mothers, far from the eyes of neighbors and the minds of the young men with whom they shared transgression. A healthy, white baby at the Immanuel School of Nursing Orphanage cost just $300 in 1961. There were so many babies available, they were actually free at the Nebraska Children's Home. The abundance made for a generation of adoptees. People say foolish things to adopted children, like how grateful they should be someone gave them a home, or don't they ever want to find their "real" parents, as if the ones they've known since cognizance are somehow temporary. There's no blanket reaction to being a party to adoption. Not everyone cares to ponder a completely speculative life, yet the curiosity is likely there, tucked away in a file that comes out maybe once a year, on the anniversary the connection was severed. Tomorrow is such a day for Dorothy. She may wonder, as she's getting dressed, if someone else searches high and low to find pants that are long enough. She may look at her hands and wonder if that someone has the long, angular fingers of a pianist. Passing a mirror, she may smile and think there can't be a whole lot of faces like hers out there - angular, sharp, lopsided, dimpled. She may return for a moment to that day in the delivery room, when a skinny little caterwauling piece of herself was whisked away forever. She might wonder what kind of a person became of that arrangement of cells. Perhaps she both dreads and desires a knock on the door from an unmistakably familiar stranger. She could be doing the math as she pours a cup of coffee, or probably tea. There could be a few seconds of disbelief when she realizes it's been 37 years, and that somewhere on earth, a grown woman she's never met shares one of the most profound moments of her life. Dorothy might bump into the memory periodically throughout the day. She might remember the labor of pushing another person out of her body and into the world, and later being greeted by the silence of a family insistent on shame. It could be she never spoke a word of it, never told a soul. It could be that words established reality in Dorothy's world, therefore silence erased the unpleasant, the painful and the unresolved. It's neither tragic nor transcendent to give up a child, or to be such a child. Every family has its convolutions and struggles. Everyone chooses between connection and estrangement, yet adoption suggests that both are temporal, figments of our waking sleep. Wherever she may be tomorrow, Dorothy may wonder if a 37-year-old woman is angry with her for choosing estrangement. If there were any way to let her know, I would tell her I'm not. Tuesday, March 10, 1998 |