Tag: adoption

Resentment

by 8hummingbirdway

I just came across a post on Resentment. (content below)

This word brings back a memory of resenting my oldest daughter. Ugh. Not a good memory.

She was my sister’s biological child. I loved her and do love her. She is one of the strongest, most loving and most present people in my life. I could say so much about her. My stance toward her is gratitude.

43 years ago, my sister vanished and her boyfriend delivered their child to my mother. She was 3 months old. My mom, who was physically challenged, cared for her for 10 months while I organized my life so I could become her guardian and eventually adopt her. I spent alternate weekends at my mom’s and they visited me the other weekends. During the week I studied computer programming so I could support a child.

My boyfriend and I had not gotten around to wanting to build a family. (Would we have?) We were 26 and 27. I had been working at my dream job – managing a food cooperative, which didn’t pay a lot. My boyfriend was a musician, which paid less.

I left the job and my dad paid for me to learn programming.

For my dad, it was not an option for his only grandchild to be raised by anyone other than a family member. For this I am eternally grateful, but I didn’t understand his insistence at the time. At a family meeting, he said he would raise her, if nobody else would. This didn’t seem ideal to me. He was fun when I was younger, but not a caretaker …and short on patience. I was the oldest (of 5), and everyone looked to me. I felt trapped. I went with the flow and agreed to save the day.

Fast forward 4 years from the time of this decision and the 3 of us had moved to renting a larger living space. I was working in a nearby city. We had married and had adopted our delightful daughter who had turned us into parents. My husband was advancing in his musical career and was away often – learning the ropes in NYC, and sometimes overseas. Although he was a good daddy, our daughter was my family’s child and I had made the decision to raise her – whether or not our relationship survived. I was glad it had, and I carried the responsibility for her well-being.

I was on duty – getting my daughter and myself up, fed, dressed, and to daycare and myself off to work, cooking, shopping, laundromat duty, playing, mothering. I liked it all – even the programming work, but I was tapped out, exhausted – and I remember returning home with resentment at this time. The corporate world was not the best for my spirit – in an office with a computer all day. There was no rejuvenation for me. I was like the Eveready Bunny – go go go.

And I felt resentful. I remember that feeling of arriving home after a long day and picking my daughter up from daycare. She had needs which included attention, eating, bathing, and settling down so sleep …and I was operating from exhaustion on a daily basis.

I remember feeling resentful …towards her. I wonder now how it impacted her, and what she carries as a result of that time when I felt resentfulness toward her.

I have moved way past it, had 2 more children, came to love parenting above all other work – I was eventually freed from working away from home; I was laid off, built a business, and eventually found a way to work at home AND homeschool my children. I am so grateful for that – and for my time as a mom, and later a grandmother too.

My oldest daughter is now a scientist and the mother of two strong and loving young men.

I realize as I consider all this, that my resentment was transferred to my first husband. That marriage lasted a long time – about 25 years. But it was tainted by my resentment. My ex-husband and I are now on good terms after many years of distance. We meet up at holidays and graduations, etc. and are glad to see each other. He is a good man. My favorite thing about him is that he loves our children as much as I do.

I will have to mention to him that I have released all resentment.

I hope he can release any harm it may have caused him.

I want to check in with my daughter as well. We spoke last night, and I decided not to bring it up. Abandonment/adoption takes a big toll on one’s inner well being, and she was feeling hurt by her dad and disappointed by one of her siblings.

I’m not sure whether sharing my past resentment would land well now – or ever.

I generally find it helpful to speak the truth, but sometimes her heart is so tender. I will have to feel it out as time unfolds.

I want her to know that she was, and is, a blessing to me. For now, I sense that’s all that needs to be said.

POST FROM Daily OM Inspiration (dailyom.com)

When anger has no outlet, it can morph into resentment and has the potential to cause us great turmoil.

Anger, when channeled into the pursuit of change, can be a useful tool in our emotional palette. Anger is experienced by most people — some more than others. It is when anger has no outlet and morphs into resentment that it carries with it the potential to cause us great turmoil. Allowing us to assign blame for the pain we are feeling often eases it, but it creates resentment, which tends to smolder relentlessly below the surface of our awareness, eroding our peace of mind. The target of our resentment grows ever more wicked in our minds, and we rue the day we first encountered them. But resentment is merely another hue on the emotional palette, and therefore, it is within the realm of our conscious control. We can choose to let go of our resentment and move on with our lives, no matter how painful the event that incited it.

Hanging onto resentment in our hearts does not serve us in any way. Successfully divesting ourselves of resentful feelings can be difficult, however, because doing so forces us to mentally and emotionally confront the original source of anger. When we cease assigning blame, we realize that our need to hold someone or something responsible for our feelings has harmed us. We thought we were coping with our hurt, when in fact, we were holding onto that hurt with a vice grip. To release resentment, we must shift our attention from those we resent back toward ourselves by thinking of our own needs. Performing a short ceremony can help you quell resentful feelings by giving tangible form to your emotions. You may want to write down your feelings and then burn the paper and close your ceremony by wishing them well. When you can find compassion in your heart, you know you are on your way to healing.

Free of resentment, we have much more energy and attention to devote to our personal development. We can fill the spaces it left behind with unconditional acceptance and joy. And, as a result of our subsequent freedom from resentment, blessings can once again enter our lives as the walls we built to contain our anger have been demolished.

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My Daughter/My Sister

by 8hummingbirdway

I wrote recently about the fact that my sister gave birth to my oldest daughter. I believe this was a result of a choice I made that caused pain for both of them. See prior post.

My daughter’s path:

My oldest child was born to my sister, who had taken LSD multiple times with a group of friends at a young age, and at some point got “stuck” in an imbalance through her experience. At the age of 14 or 15, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Her partner, when she brecame pregnant, was an alcoholic who had served in Vietnam. Things were not easy in their home with a newborn child, and at the age of 3 months my daughter was brought to my mother’s house. My mom cared for her for 10 months while I trained for a career which would enable me to support a child.  One might think this was a simple happy ending, but all her life my daughter has carried the pain of abandonment that all adopted children carry. Trust has never come easy to her. For so many many years she felt less than others. She navigated an abusive marriage, which, thank God, she found the strength to leave when her sons were 8 +10. I carry this knowledge of my beloved daughter’s pain.

Today she is an amazing woman. She has healed and is still healing herself and her sons from abuse. She walks tall and is kind. My grandsons are wise and loving – in college and finding their way to full manhood. She has a job she loves and a partner she loves and is becoming a gardener like her mom (me) and also has a special feeling for animals like her biological mother did when she was younger.

She is a loving and supportive and wise and present daughter. I wish she was closer, but I can get to her in 3 hours. I give thanks for her daily.

My sister’s path:

My sister has not had an easy time of it. It was difficult for us (my parents and 4 siblings) to accept our loss of the gentle person we had known, her imbalance and delusions. She spent time in an institution early on, in which she suffered abuse of various kinds at the hands mostly of other patients, including rape. The medication she was given for mental illness made it difficult to think, function, or relate to others. She had a hard time navigating a job or keeping an apartment. Becoming pregnant did not add to her stability, but she did her best.

At the age of 22, my sister was a migrant worker in Florida. When she realized she was pregnant, she returned to the fold of her family. Her boyfriend followed her back North and they were supported to set up housekeeping in a nearby apartment. I lived 4 hours away, and I remember seeing her once during this time. She really did glow. When my sister went into labor almost 2 months prematurely, she was flown to a hospital. Her daughter was in an incubator for some time, without a lot of touch, as happens. My sister took a bus daily and pumped her breasts at the hospital in a city about an hour away to provide the benefit of natural immunities and nutrients carried only in breastmilk. I remember visiting the baby there. She was beautiful.

I don’t know what happened when she was released from the hospital. I was told that one day my sister’s boyfriend showed up at my mother’s door and told her that our sister had left and said “Here’s the baby.” My mom was not physically strong, but managed to care for the baby for close to a year.

I had no thoughts of parenthood, but my father was forceful – saying this child might be all we had of my sister. I acquiesced. Plans were made for me, the oldest, to become her guardian. About 7 months later the 2 of them showed back up again.

This is where my heart breaks. My sister had been pumping milk for all that time so that she could fill a bottle and once again step into motherhood. However, it was not a positive dynamic that they brought into my mother’s house. I had fully embraced the path ahead and “our” baby was now 10 months old. I was spending weekends with her at both my mom’s and my home.

Now my sister had returned and was setting up obstacles so the baby couldn’t get to my mom. She’d crawl over or around one, and another suitcase or box would be set up. Scarves were draped around her neck. I walked into this scenario unexpectedly on day of my sister’s return. My mom, paralyzed, was allowing this. I banished my sister and her boyfriend, taking “my” daughter home with me for a week while my mom had her locks changed. No conversations. No explanations. No attempt to navigate the change of course with compassion or grace. I just went into protective mom mode and took the action I perceived as correct. [Did I mention how much I loved and missed my sister? A story for another day.]

I think of this as the day I stole my sister’s child.

We didn’t see my sister again for years. This lovely child turned my boyfriend and I into parents; we got married and adopted her. We were a family. We had 2 more children a few years later. My sister did return to the area where our parents lived for a few years, and she and her biological (our) daughter got to know each other during family gatherings. Then she disappeared again. Nothing about any of this – presence or absence – was easy for either of them. 

My daughter never saw her biological father again. Our door was open to him and there was one aborted visit that broke her 4 year old heart. When she was a young adult, he called her off and on for a few years saying “Hi it’s your father.” She informed him one day that he was not her father, and maybe that’s when the calls began to include alcohol and anger. When she moved, he no longer had her number (cell phones). My daughter learned after trying to seek him out a couple years ago that he had died the prior year.

My sister now lives 2 times zones away, has a stable life and our youngest sister and her husband provide connection and family in the form of their children and grandchildren on a regular basis.

My gratitude is boundless.

So much pain all around. But a song arises, strangely from this telling. The words are …

From thee I receive, To thee I give, Together we share, And from this we live.

Because there is also so much love.

I thank my father for keeping my sister and my daughter in our lives.

I thank my youngest sister for providing so much for our challenged sister.

And as well as the knowledge of their pain, I carry the wonder of my sweet sister’s gift to me.

I will tell more about all of this – of us on our joined and separate journeys – at some point.

Listen to song mentioned above (hoping I posted it correctly). https://youtube.com/shorts/F1-eICA5hS0?feature=shared

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