Continued: From The Journey of How I Became Your Mother: Thanksgiving and LeRoy’s Boys.
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When I was 13-years-old Uncle Eddie announced that his birth mother was sick and needed someone to take care of her. The mother he had not lived with since he was only 4-years-old, had found her son and asked for a place to stay. The picture here was taken the day she flew in from Illinois. This is my grandmother, Aunt Terrie, Uncle Eddies birth mother with the white hair, and my parents–Uncle Eddie took this picture.
Not very many years ago most adopted kids never knew who their birth mother was, everything was kept a secret. But, because no one ever adopted Uncle Eddie he knew his birth mother’s name and could remember a few things about her. Finding his birth mom and bringing her to his home was very unusual, no one had really ever heard of such a thing happening in 1976.
I remember this was a difficult time for Aunt Terrie, she worried about the man she loved bringing home a mother who couldn’t even take care of her little boys. The whole family was concerned and didn’t really want to like a birth mother, who couldn’t even take good care of her sons. It was hard to understand what was happening, or even how to act about it. Some wanted to be judgmental about her, and ask what the heck her problem had been.
Uncle Eddie asked everyone to just understand–this was his mother. He told us all that he was the hurt child–not us, and we had no right to judge her. Uncle Eddie told us that Jesus had died on the cross for our sins, the least he could do was to forgive his own mother. So we all watched and followed his lead as he showed us all how to love a mother who hadn’t been there for him as a child.
It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t much like the people in our family. She had problems that showed in her eyes, and she was an odd person. She seemed rather old compared to our Grandmother, but as time went along we all grew to love her too. She was our Uncles Birth mother, my Aunt Millie and if Uncle Eddie was able to forgive her for the terrible childhood she gave her sons we could too.
After some time in our family, Aunt Millie returned to Illinois. Uncle Eddie kept contact with her and wrote letters, until he died. Aunt Millie is living in a nursing home now, and some of us try to be sure we remember her in honor of Uncle Eddies forgiving heart. It wasn’t ever too hard for me, because I could tell when I met her there really was something wrong with her. It seemed pretty clear that as bad as she had been, her sons were better off having grown up in an orphanage, without her. But, that never meant we couldn’t love her.
Continued: I Married An Adopted Boy.
Related Blogs:
- Choices and Consequences
- Scar Tissue
- Rumors and Crutches
- The Story of Joe and Eddie
- Thanksgiving and LeRoy’s Boys
- When Uncle Eddie Took Care of His Birth Mother.
- I Married An Adopted Boy.
Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms: Adoption terms and special needs words may vary from agency to agency. The terms used in this Special Needs Adoption-Related Glossary may be slightly different from one State to another.
A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.
Anna Glendenning is also Families.com Insurance and Guest Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/happymomanna/blog