This post tries to put into words the experiences of grief felt by one adoptee. It is however a feeling that runs within the adoptee community.
The mud is real, the swamp is real, the feeling of walking through it all is real – I am in survival mode. Only this year is different, the whole world has become a swamp. We are all caught up in a slower moving world, where solutions don’t seem to be forthcoming. We are just getting deeper and deeper into the swamp of muddy stickiness. The only antidote to this, I have found, is to go deeper and deeper within myself to find my answers.
Deep, deep, deep into the volcano, to reach the heart that is too hot for the human part of me to go. I can only send my mind and Soul, deep within itself, to find the part of me that is in there, and ask it to come forth of it’s own freewill. The furnace that is within, is where the “smithing” takes place. The part of Joy that is going through the fire at the moment, to be heated, bent, beaten and moulded into a piece of joyful expression, that has been forged through fire.
Now is the season, the time of the year towards the end of January and the beginning of February, that I get catapulted from a time of birth celebrations, into the furnace of grief – to go back through the smithing process again, for refinement.
31 years! 31 years of grieving for a father and son, in the space of 14 days. I have now been grieving longer that I have been living. Or have I? Maybe my whole life has been a life of grieving. Maybe the moment that my mother walked away and was dead to me, I began to grieve. I should have. But does society recognise the need for the child to go throught the grief process, who is ultimately relinquished and adopted?
Society recognises the saviours, not the bereaved. The saviours celebrate your coming into their household, whilst maintaining silence over your bereavement. The child has an air and energy of bereavement surrounding it, but the saviours celebrate, completely oblivious to the need for grieving. The baby, taken into the family, is surrounded by celebration. But who celebrates at a funeral? A life can be celebrated, someone’s achievements can be celebrated, memories are recalled and remembered and celebrated, but the new born has little to celebrate, they are grieving and society does nothing to help them through the process accept to foster them through it. Nappies are changed, bottles are made up and fed to you, clean clothes are provided, a bed to sleep in. All the physical needs are met, but what about the psychological trauma that has been inflicted? The primal wound needs tending to, but who even acknowledges the wound is even there?
Did I have a family who rocked me and soothed me and said “There there, you’re ok now, you’re safe, we’ve got you, grieve away” or did I get a family who said “You’re ours now, forget where you came from. Forget your roots, your culture and your heritage. You’re our child now and we want to celebrate our accomplishments, not recognise and honour your bereavement.” This latter I believe fosters the festering of the primal wound, for as long as the injured party takes to realise it is there and start their own self-healing process.
Thank you for reading. It would be an honour to read your thoughts on this post.
Blessings and Joy, Joy
I am developing a Community on facebook for adoptees to help them on their healing journey. I started it on Feb 12th 2021, what would have been my son’s 31st Birthday. Please come and join us Finding Joy Community
We are also on mewe
PS note. Almost a year has past since I wrote this post. I wrote a lot of posts at the beginning of 2021 looking at my adoption and all things that crossed my path that even remotely related to it. Mid-way through the year i had to stop as the community overwhelmed me in it’s feelings and emotions and I couldn’t face it anymore. I have healed somewhat, but didn’t need to be reminded as to what we are subjected to. On that point, the facebook group and mewe haven’t really been updated. Blessings Joy x
Finding Joy....... 