It wouldn’t take long for someone who didn’t know me well, to clue into who my mom is. She’s the person I call everyday to check in, she’s the person I call with interesting news or gossip even if I just spent thirty minutes talking to her before. She is the person I call with complaints, sorrows, excitement and joy when something major happens in my life.
She’s my adoptive mom.
I felt like I needed to tell everyone about my adoptive family a bit more, so that it doesn’t come across as if there was nothing good about it. There most certainly WAS and IS.
My adoptive parents were on a waiting list for me for several years. They wanted to adopt a child badly after learning that my father could not have children. I have not gone into great detail with my adoptive mother on the whole situation but I am assuming that other options were not acceptable or were not available.
When they got me, they once again placed themselves on the adoption list again, and five and a half years later they got my brother.
My adoptive mother was supportive, loving, she kissed the boo-boo’s and tried to mend the broken hearts. They gave me all they could give, and made sure I wanted for nothing.
Unfortunately I would have nothing to do with any of it, once I became a teenager. I was unruly, wild and rebellious. Strangely, I was a good girl though during it all. I just wanted out. I wanted a family who understood me, and try as they did (and they did try!), they just could not understand who I was. I was a total opposite of this family.
But as an adult, in total retrospect, I realized that my mom did the best she could with what she had to work with. She was a good parent.
My relationship with my adoptive father was less that cozy, and less that perfect. There really never was a relationship and I’ve had to live with that all these years. He passed away my senior year of high school. It took years to recover from that, and deal with the pain and confusion of what our relationship actually was.
But again, as an adult, in total retrospect, the quote “Children Learn What They Live” held true for him. The way he parented, the behavior and styles, which were not led by very good choices, were learned behaviors from his own parents. Yelling, screaming and impulsive discipline. Nothing like I wanted to be when I grew up and had my own family.
On a firmly positive note, when someone asks “Where’s your mom?” the first person I think of is my adoptive mother.
She will always be my mom.
Even when I’m mad at her and wish she wasn’t. She’s there when I need her, and she’s always going to be. She is my mom, the only one I knew for 22 years of my life.