Pound Pup Legacy

RealKris asked in almost human's grief-related thread:

I always worry how I can be honest withouth portraying these harsher aspects of their firstfamilies? How can I encourage them to be open to express their grief or even resentment towards us or their situations? I would love for any ideas, if you could go back to your childhood, what do you wish your parents did or said, or not said?  http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/20702#comment-4936

Out of respect, given the raw nature of AH's original theme in her thread, I'd like to answer these sort of questions in a separate section.

Honesty is a funny little term that really gets over-used within the adoption language.  Considering the decades of mass corruption behind the adoption industry, I think the term "honest" has it's limitations.

That being said, I always wanted to have my AP's take me to St John's, Newfoundland, where I was born.  I was led to believe my mother lived there, so it was only natural for me to wonder what my living conditions would have been like, had she kept me.   [The option of being adopted by another couple never occurred to me until I was much older.]  After all, I was "chosen" by the only people who wanted me.

I needed to see if I would have fit-in or feel comfortable with those who shared my same origins.  This was as much about land, food and environment, as people.  In my secret dreams, I would have the chance to meet and speak with my Real Mother, all alone.  She would tell me who I looked like, and she'd tell me why I was sent away.  We'd part knowing she thought of me, and I thought of her, and we'd separate knowing there could be a sense of peace, even within the broken pieces.

My fantasy-trip would consist of a special tour where I'd be taken to the place where she lived when she was pregnant with me, the place where I was born, and the place she lived afterwards.  My fantasy-trip would enable me to have a sense of reality of the situation, maybe explaining to me why it was better for me to go live in another country.

Even when I was very little, I needed to see the geography behind the stories in my mind.  "Would I have liked living where my family is - or am I better-off here, far away from that small world that got left-behind?"

This is where adoption's lies can be so cruel.  I was told Newfoundland is a VERY poor region, a place where unwanted children were sent to workhouses and live terrible lives.

In my case, my mother never "lived" in Newfoundland... she only used that location as a birthing-site because she didn't want to bring shame to her family.  How long was she there?  Long enough to find a job, finish a pregnancy and then leave.  St John's was never "her home"... but it was home to an area that shipped lots of white children to America.  [I was devestated when I learned an adoption agency made sure I had no "home-life" or family to go back to.]

I was told she was a drunk who was married but had an affair.  Rather than having an abortion, she [thanks to her Catholic religion] chose to have me, but give me away so no one would get hurt from the scandal.

This was the story told to me by my amother.

I eventually learned both my first parents were not married, not Newfies, not drunks but long-term sweethearts, in their twenties, who were educated and lived on family farms in Alberta.  

What I learned from this is, there is no closure when lies are told.  Whether the lies were told TO my Amother, or by her, that's academic.  The bottom line is, lies and deception kill the dreams a person wants to keep inside.

The simple truth is, an adoptee will always question and wonder, "how did it all begin?"  If there are lies and hidden secrets in the story that gets told... there's no telling or knowing where the mind of that child is going to go.