It never went the way they promised.
After a ton of promises on their part to never keep me from him
I signed away my rights in California when James was 7 days old.
They took him home to Michigan the next week and they never had
a home study done
or initiated adoption proceedings.
They never told
me why, but I found out later that private Adoption was illegal in Michigan.
They would have had to go through a state agency to adopt James.
The state would have done a home study and then decided if James would
have stayed with them, or removed him and place him with another couple.
Since I had signed away my rights, once they started the process
neither they nor I could stop it.
It was very against everything I wanted for James to be put in foster care
or placed with people I didn't know so I’m glad they didn't take that risk.
I never got the promised pictures and letters from them,
and after just a few weeks
they started sending back everything
I sent.
Every year I would send Christmas and Birthday presents.
Every time, sometimes months later, it would come back marked
REFUSED.
I saw James again briefly when he was 2 years old.
I was
able to get a few pictures of him with my own camera then.
It was on Mothers Day 1985.
That was my own personal proof of miracles.
You see I was Pentecostal and Roberta was Mennonite.
Roberta lived in Michigan and was in California visiting family.
I had lived in Florida for the previous year and a half, and had
just moved back. Neither of us knew that the other was
anywhere near there,
and neither of us would have attended
that church. A Baptist Church.
Yet there we were, ON MOTHERS DAY, together with
James right there between us!
I spent the whole week that I knew she was in town in torment.
I wanted so much to have James put in foster care
while we fought it out right then and there.
The only thing that stopped me was the look on his face.
When I approached him, he climbed her like a tree and gripped her
terrified of me. If I won, he would loose the only Mother
he had ever known.
I couldn't do that.
After that she softened a little. When she was in California the next
two years, she called us and let us see him.
When he was 10
the kids and I spent three weeks close to them in Michigan.
We saw each other several times.
I was careful not to make any
scary moves.
I mostly just let the kids interact and watched.
My two boys went to Michigan the next summer to see James's.
I wanted them to have a good relationship.
We had made arrangements to have 2 other visits that they canceled
at the last moment. I was disappointed but thought that we
could make another arrangement soon.
I didn't realize that I
wouldn't see him again until he reached adulthood.
I called him on his 12th birthday.
It was the first time
I had ever called him.
I was surprised that they put him on the phone.
I could hear her on the other line.
The stress in his voice was hard to bear.
I asked him to watch for something from me and sent him my bible
and a poem that I had written for his 10th birthday.
Stupid things to send
to a 12 year old but they meant allot to me. If it was the only thing
he was to ever get from me, that was what I wanted him to have.
A few months later his family split up, and they divorced that year.
Both Roberta and Marvin tried to get me to give them each custody of James
and for a few short moments
I considered taking him back.
It seemed as though, as far as the law was concerned,
I was either still James' legal parent or no one had any rights to him.
I had sent her a couple of letters and she had James answer them. It felt
like she was holding my child out in front of her, to protect her from my anger.
In the last letter that she had James write, he sent back a check that I had sent.
I took comfort from the fact, that at least he knew that I had tried.
I made several attempts to contact him directly and he refused to speak with me.
I decided that his life was scary enough.
He was clinging to His Mother and wanted
no contact with Marvin or I. What was right didn't matter. He was afraid of loosing
her.
Neither of us wanted to hurt him, so we backed off and left them alone.
I wouldn't want anyone else to do what we did. A lot of pain
came out of my inability to let James go. We left James in limbo and
at anytime the state could have stepped in and removed James.
The fact that Roberta always had to worry about her legal standing
may have made her say and do things that hurt James in the long run
and hurt our relationship as well because I was always a threat.
If anything ever happened, I wanted to be his safety net,
but that meant my life always had to have a place for him.
He was the ghost in our home.
My other children lived with that. They had to deal with
the fact that they lost a brother and they had no control over it.
They also had to deal with my openly grieving that loss.
My husband thought that I would give him up and that we could go on
with our lives, but I put James picture on our walls and I talked about him.
I never let Him forget that I hurt horribly for not having James with us.
God has saved us from the worst that could happen, but I can never decide
exactly how guilty I am of so much evil by not doing the "right thing".
I still wonder if I should have done what was expected of Birthmothers.
Leaving my child totally in the hands of some unknown adopters, and never speaking
of it again would have at least spared everyone else in my life a share of the pain.
I am not that noble.
I would not let go even when I felt he was being pried
from my fingers
by people I cared about and never wanted to hurt.
I would
not deny my own pain and just let go.
I am responsible for a lot of pain
in people that I was supposed to love.
The weight of that responsibility
is sometimes heavier
then the responsibility of my child ever could have been.
This was for his tenth birthday.
Anniversaries
Ten years ago today
Ten years ago today
I placed my infant in her arms
and they took you far away
Now I still see your blue eyes
but their just a photograph
My arms they ache to hold you
My heart to hear you laugh
Ten years ago today
Ten years ago today
Sometimes anniversaries
Will steal your heart away
Not all anniversaries are
happy times you see
Some are like the days I count
not joining you and me
Now God I know from giving
there is something that is gained
Please Dear God forgive me
when I doubt it's worth the pain.
Ten years ago today
Ten years ago today
My arms they ache to hold you like
Ten years ago today
We were never allowed to know James the way we were promised.
I hope someday that will change.
The candle burns until they all come home.
E-mail: Birthmom 2 James
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