unchosen
Thursday, February 23 
My biological dad (holding me), my mom, great-grandma and uncle, in back, gather for a photo three weeks after I was born. Not exactly a happy looking bunch.
I often dog-ear essays and stories I love, then bring them with me to read aloud to whomever is trapped behind the wheel with me on road trips.
Last weekend Shawn and I went for our annual Nordic ski getaway with friends to Harriman State Park, and I asked him if I could read him an essay in a magazine called Mamalode. The essay, written by Zoe Vaughn, was about her 15-year-old daughter, who gets pregnant and leaves Zoe and her husband to raise their grandson, Connor.
As Connor matures enough to talk, he realizes his family situation is different from other children:
Sometimes in those early days with Connor, he would ask, “Where my Mommy, Gramma?” What could I tell him? My soul cracked apart…he was my guy, my heart. “Mommy is still just a kid too, honey. She loves you enough to know that you need to be with Gramma and Papa. Mommy doesn’t have a place to live right now, and you’re little; you need people to take care of you, and we’re right here. We’re always going to be right here for you.”
As I read the essay, suddenly my voice disappeared.
“What was that?” Shawn asked, concentrating on the icy road.
I tried again, barely able to force a whisper.
Suddenly I was crying, hard, with no idea why, and could only explain that it killed me to think of this little guy feeling so lost and unchosen.
Then later, after arriving at Harriman and skiing for several hours, I understood.
My mom and biological dad were just 20 years old when they had me. Old photos of me as a baby seem to suggest I loved my bio dad, but then my parents divorced around the time I turned two. My bio dad was young, financially unstable and in college, and didn’t see me much. When my mom met a guy and fell in love a few years later, he adopted me just in time for me to start kindergarten with his last name.
Me and my bio dad out for a walk,1969.
Since that time, I’ve mostly focused on how lucky I was to be chosen by my adoptive dad, and raised as his little girl. He's a good man, and my life would have been worse without him. But part of me has always been curious about my bio dad, and I’ve communicated with him (mostly from a distance) many times throughout the years.
I don’t feel anger towards him; I feel compassion for the guilt I know he carries. And really, the thought of dwelling in the past, all that "healing your inner child" nonsense – I’m not into it. There are so many people in this world who’ve been dealt exponentially worse hands than me in life. Who am I to carry around and indulge in hurt? Or worse, use it as an excuse for causing harm to others?
So on my last birthday, when I received a card from my bio dad with this kind message, I thought, Oh good grief. Can't we just let this go?
"I regret (more than I can say) that I was not there with you as you grew. But I could not be prouder or happier about the person you seem to have become."
Still, there it was last weekend…some sort of old hurt that snuck up and completely undid me. While I was skiing, suddenly I was absolutely certain I’d asked my mom that same question as the child in the essay did when I was little: Why doesn’t my real dad want me anymore?
I’ve had this obsession for years of becoming a foster parent once the boys leave home. Lucky for me, Shawn is open to the idea. I’m just now understanding where this desire comes from: It hurts to think there are children out there who live with the knowledge that they were not chosen. Not chosen by their own parents, and that maybe somehow, it's their own fault. Maybe they aren't lovable, or don't deserve to be loved.
Lucky for me, I was chosen. But it's there waiting to be claimed before it will loosen its grip: I was also not chosen.
Reader Comments (7)
Sooo... there's this book I love. That I didn't expect to love. It's The Happiness Project. Which already sounds silly. Because happiness sounds so unnecessary. So many people are suffering-- do I have the right to worry about making my already cushy life a *happier* cushy life? Isn't that over the top? I had decided the book was not for me. Until I found myself in a seat for the author's presentation at a conference. I'd already written it/her off.
But one of the discussions in the book is about the desire to make others in your life happy. And the author discusses how the best way to do that, maybe, is to be happy yourself.
And you reminded me of that when you discounted your own need to heal when there are other, maybe larger, hurts that need healing.
And yet-- you can be better able to help others with their healing-- if you work on healing your own hurts first.
I'd say that's worth the effort? I think you're worthy of that effort.
(And this Thursday morning starts with tears.)
Hugs to you on this journey.
Oh Megan, what a journey you have been on. Funny how feelings kinda sneak up on you and you did not even know they were there. You were chosen and are chosen and love and are loved. I am glad you shared this part of your story and it took guts to tell it. Thank you and it helps me understand you better. And I love you all the more for it.
Wow. Love to you and that part of all of us that wonders if we're worthy of love.
I am so happy my son chose you. He gave me the greatest gift: a grandaughter to love and cherish for her great gifts to us all. I am still awating the "great american" novel, You should find inspiration in your own words in Minor Disasters........
Humans are so weak. Every moment we show it in blindness, selfishness, oblivion, ignorance, even when overall we believe we mean well. I am victim of that; I victimize others the same way. I wish I could help it. If I did not read and believe the Bible, I would not be the secure person I have grown to be. Humans on our own simply do not have the capacity to love right and well.
My uncle looked for meaning and love, lived an alcoholic, died a quadriplegic from a drunken accident. He did not understand how much his mother loved him, didn't 'get it' until she was long gone and my mother showed him the baby book, letters, all the loving evidence he was unable to recognize in his youth. When death released him from his wheelchair, he died secure and loved, through divine perspective he finally 'got'.
Bitterness would be one way to deal with that unchosen feeling. Your response is to give, to love, to protect. You have chosen well.
Now, I can't say I recommend this blog post if you're looking to *stop* focusing on the unchosen side, but I thought it was an amazing piece of writing on the subject:
http://blogs.babble.com/dadding/2012/02/16/a-feast-of-deadbeats-love-saddness-and-long-gone-daddies/#more-2550
"Know that you can make all that pain, all that missing and loving and wishing that we convince ourselves doesn’t exist, (because we have to get strong early and stay strong forever) you can make all of that stuff mean something after all; by trying your damnedest to never ever hurl the same terrible scorpions into your own kids’ beds; by never ever repeating what has been thrust upon you."
You've done that with your boys, and you do it with the way you live your life.
Susan: Well, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've read that book (and liked it very much). Guess I sort of forgot the message? Thanks for reminding me, and thanks for the hug!
SDA: Thanks, sweet sis-in-law o' mine!
Bliss Chick: Yes, I'm guessing such feelings are experienced by many of us, despite different life experiences. It's good to remember that.
Grandma: I'm glad he chose me too. My life would have been very different without him. Thanks for your sweet note :)
NLwD: Awww, thanks for that sweet message. And what a heartbreaking/redeeming story about your uncle. I'm so glad he got to eventually see physical evidence though that he was indeed loved and move forward with new beliefs about himself and his family. Sounds like it set him free, despite the constraints of the wheelchair.
Lunch Date: What a beautiful quote...I'm heading over to that other blog link to read. Thanks for your comment:)