Wilma

After Vicki found me and we started talking, I had questions, so her Mother (my birth mother) wrote me a letter. I had got used to calling Wilma and Joe my birth parents in my head. Meaning they gave birth to me- they concieved me- they brought me into the world but that is really all I could fathom.  I had fewer memories of Wilma than I did of Vicki and Joe, who though he was around more never stood out to me as anything more than what he was, my uncle, who I did not particularly like.   He and Wilma had divorced not long after I was born, and she had moved up to Michigan with my sister and brothers. Joe was living with my grandma, so I know he was there at christmases, other holidays but I don't remember him even speaking to me directly or even acting like I was more to him than his sister's child. Mostly I remember he was often drunk. I found out later he didn't want to sign the adoption papers but My Dad took him in a room by himself and when they came out the papers were signed.  I asked Dad later as an adult what he said to make him sign, he said you don't want to know. So I never asked again. Joe died when I was 8, I remember the funeral, and Wilma and the other kids there. I remember her hugging me and whispering my baby in my ear. But I didn't really realize what she meant, and I remember my Mom being sad. I remember my brother Joey calling out as he left "See you later alligator!" and me saying "Atta while crocodile!" And me finding that hilariously funny.  I was 8.

Mom never said much about Wilma, I once in a while would ask why she gave me up, but Mom would skirt around the question, just saying she had enough to deal with. It was the best thing, etc. etc.  I found out recently Wilma asked her what she would say when I asked about her, and Mom told her she just wouldn't say anything, and that she would never say anything bad.   And she didn't.  It made her uncomfortable when I would ask so again I just quit asking.  She would tell me that she did the right and good thing, and now I realize that she did. Being an adopted teenager, with all the angst of the teen years, and the feelings all kids have towards their parents would throw myself a little pity party everyone once in a while, or when I wanted my own way would throw the fact that they weren't my "REAL" parents in Mom and Dad's faces.   If I could go back now I would tape my mouth shut or cut out my tongue before those words came of out my mouth.  How I could have even thought for one second they weren't real parents is beyond me now as an adult. My niece has told me that your brain is not fully developed until you are twenty five years old.   I believe it- because anyone with a brain would never had uttered those words. 

And as a teenager I was angry with Wilma, for giving me up, for not loving me, for taking care of the others but not me, but mostly in my teenage head I thought she couldn't have loved me, at all.  I was the baby- I was the only other girl, how could she have not wanted me? I would pour over pictures of myself as a baby and think, was I ugly, was I a constant crier? Mom never said I was a bad baby, she said I was a pretty darn good baby.  Mom never told me she was an awful mother, or mean so it had to be me, I would think. There had to be something wrong with me.  I never shared that with Mom or Dad though.  They would have brushed me off, told me I was crazy, that I was loved and loveable, and absolutely nothing wrong with me, but as a teenager I wanted to hold onto that anger and hurt.  It took me a long time to let it go.  Probably about the time my first son was born. 

But now all these years later I had a letter in my hand, and an explanation.  My heart just broke. I didn't know anything about anything.  I didn't know that she married Joe when she was only 13, or that she was just 21 when I was born, the fifth one in six years.  I thought about that, and about my own children.  Jenna was two and a half when Justin was born, and I just about lost my mind with just having two babies to deal with.   I found out from my sister that she grew sad and cried all day on my birthday every year. That she truly TRULY wanted to me to have an easier childhood than she knew she could give me and that she loved my parents, trusted them with her daughter.  She never contacted me because she was afraid it would make it hard on me.  It might have, but I was an adult now.  She told me in the letter she would never try and replace my Mom, but she wanted to have a relationship with me if we could. She wanted to know me and my family.  I wanted that too, desperately, but I was   afraid.  This was early in 2009, and I wrote her a letter back, several but I never sent them.  I was afraid the letter didn't sound right, afraid I would sound angry, or silly.  I was nervous and worried about it.  It was different with Vicki, she was my sister, we could have a sister relationship, but what kind of relationship could I have with Wilma? Could we be friends? Plus always I was afraid of hurting my Mom, she was going through such a difficult time, how could I make it harder on her?

With the way things were going with Mom I did nothing. Until  Wilma got a facebook. We started talking a little bit on there. I felt more comfortable then on the phone, and then I talked to Jenna and we decided to invite her to the Wedding. I wanted to see her, I wanted to meet her, and I wanted to get to know this woman who gave birth to me.  I was very excited when she said she would come. Also very very nervous. But whatever, I was already nervous about everything, what was one more thing?