Dear Diary (1968-69) .....

My grandmother kept a diary for years and faithfully wrote entries every single day.  I received a diary when I was 11 (birthday present, I'm guessing) and made a rather half-hearted attempt to keep a record of my life.  Unfortunately, I wasn't very good at it, and I had a younger brother who kept stealing it to read it (even though there was very little written inside -- go figure).

I did make some notes about life with my new adoptive "family" during my first couple years there.  I'm transcribing them now just as I wrote them then.

Fish out of water .....

I'd lived my entire life in cities; first San Francisco, then a small city in the Midwest.  My uncle, however, lived in a New England suburb.  Despite its size (pop. ~15,000), it was far more cosmopolitan than the city where I'd been living (pop. ~600,000).  Its location, approximately one hour outside New York City, meant that many of its residents worked in "the city" and, in fact, many were (and still are) at least semi-famous:  novelists, actors, politicians.  One of my classmates-to-be was a child model and had, by 6th grade, already appeared in several magazines.

It was vastly different from what I was used to.

Saying goodbye .....

Going through my grandfather's effects after his death, we found several letters and photographs. Shuffling through them, I came across one that I'd forgotten even existed, and seeing it brought tears to my eyes.

 

Somehow during the intervening years, I've lost the picture, but I have a clear memory of it, even now.  It's a photo of my uncle, my uncle's wife, and me -- taken just before we left for the drive "home" after my grandmother's funeral.

 

The three of us are posed in front of the family car, a station wagon.  Hitched to it, a small U-Haul trailer carrying all my worldly possessions.

 

 

 

The end of the beginning .....

The days immediately following my grandmother's death are rather hazy now.  My uncle's wife soon arrived, having made arrangements for the care of her children and then driven 800+ miles to reach my grandfather's house.  Of course, my mother (my grandmother's daughter) was notified and, as with her relinquishment of my brother and I a decade prior, there are conflicting stories about her response.

 

She was never financially well-off, and she simply didn't have the money to fly from the West Coast.  When we talked later in life, she said she told her brother and father that she wanted to attend the funeral, but just couldn't unless they paid the airfare.  My uncle's version was that she said she'd ONLY attend the funeral if one of them paid the airfare.  He never hesitated to remind me how "selfish" and "unsuccessful" she was. 

 

 

 

A side note:  When someone makes disparaging comments about an adoptee's first parent(s), it's like making a disparaging comment about the adoptee him/herself.  After all, we are the biological offspring of our first parents.  They are part of us and we are part of them, whether or not we have a relationship with them or even know them.  Please be respectful of that.

Unloved and unwanted .....

It was early November, 1967, and my grandmother had just died from breast cancer.  I thought nothing worse could possibly happen, but then my grandfather told me that, after the funeral, I'd be going home with his son (my maternal uncle).

When my birth mother allowed her parents to adopt me, it was with the understanding that they'd be able to give me a better, more stable, life.  Obviously, no one anticipated this tragic turn of events back in 1958, but this is why I suggested earlier that my grandparents were too old to adopt me.

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.