What the "experts" decided .....

In preparation for my (as yet unsuccessful) quest to have my adoption annulled, I decided to request a copy of the records from my second adoption, so I filled out the form, had it notarized, and mailed it off to the Department of Families and Children.  Soon afterwards, I received an e-mail from one of the employees of the "Adoption Search Unit" with the following information:

The application for adoption states the following:

[Grandfather], sole surviving legal guardian of [me], a minor child, desires to place said [me] for adoption with [uncle] and [uncle's wife].  And whereas [uncle] is the natural uncle of said child and thereby a blood relative descendent from a common ancestor not more than three generations removed from said child.  That the court approve a certain adoption agreement between [grandfather] the surviving legal guardian, [uncle] and [uncle's wife], the proposed adoptive parents of said child, to adopt said [me], which agreement is dated 12/28/67 at [city, state].

The record indicates that you were placed with maternal aunt and uncle on 11/9/67.  Your grandmother's burial per her death certificate was 11/6/67 in [cemetery] in [city, state].

The follow-up letter, which didn't provide much information beyond what I'd already learned.

The beginning of the end .....

The evening of the day after I refused to visit my grandmother, when I heard my grandfather and uncle return from the hospital, I skipped down the stairs to greet them.

It was then that my world came crashing down around me and life as I knew it would change forever.

As my grandfather tearfully informed me, I would never see my grandmother again, because she had died.

Since the seriousness of her condition had been kept from me, I was totally unprepared for this news and absolutely incapable of handling it.  I was, after all, just 10 years old.

More changes, with a capital "C" .....

I don't know the exact date, but by no later than 1965, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Granted, this can happen at any age, but this is a disease that's more likely to occur as a woman ages.  According to the National Cancer Institute, "Breast cancer rates are highest in people aged 55-64 years."  My grandmother would have been right in the middle of that age range.

 

No one explained to my eight-year-old self what the ramifications were of that disease.  I was fascinated by her mastectomy scar, and remember that her left arm (the side of her body where the disease was centered) became swollen and painful.  She took time off for surgery and recuperation, and I spent even more time with my great-grandmother.  However, it was around this time that my great-grandmother (who was in her 80's) fell and broke her hip, so she had health issues of her own.  Despite that, she continued to live independently, in her own house, until just a few months before she died in 1973.
 

What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet


What's in a name?  Quite a bit, as it turns out.

Recall this, from an earlier post:

The birth notice my parents mailed to my Great-Grandmother

At birth, my parents chose the name "Sharon Kay" for me, and for the first 16 months of my life my mother called me "Sharon."

 

I think most reasonable people would agree that 16 months is long enough for a child to become accustomed to and associate him/herself with a name.  Right?

Right!