Silent night

I realise -- as I am sure you do too -- that this blog has gone rather quiet. Things with regards to A has gone into 'slumber mode' in general. I am now the one who has not met him; geography is to blame.

He reads my other blog regularly, and sometimes he sends me e-mails as a result of the different posts there. I don't keep the comments open on that blog, so that is the only way people can let me know what they think of what I write. As I now find my life turned upside down (all my own doing, not all good), I have also gone head first into a depression, and I have written about that. One of the things I wrote at the end of a post was 'still putting that makeup on', and I think almost every makeup-wearing woman in the world understand what I mean by that. It means (I'll hammer it home to those who don't get it) that I'm not yet ready for suicide watch. Right? His reaction was to send me a deeply consoling e-mail stating that he finds women far more attractive without all that artificial stuff.

Hm.

I know he meant well, but he really didn't get it. Thank God it was an e-mail. Had he phoned I would probably have done the foot-in-the-mouth thing and said the first thing that came to mind, such as; don't read the fucking words, read the MEANING. At the time I had the sense not to reply, but instead replied with something blandly distant to his next report about sunsets and the common cold. Keeping my distance.

Reading through this I realise I sound like a bit of a stuck-up bitch. But it is really hard to accept a 'new' family member, to unconditionally press someone to my bosom, when I feel absolutely no kinship to him. And I mean that not in a blood-relative sort of way, I mean as a person. I feel more kinship with my dog. And you know what? I have first cousins I never see or hear from because we already know that we have nothing in common. Trying to kindle family feelings is little short of artificial.

There is of course an added problem that does nothing to help the situation. As a family, we have no family events we can include A in. I guess if it hadn't been for Geography he and his family could have been part of Christmas dinner, but even our Christmas dinners are reliant on whoever is around at the time. It's a bit of a fluke that I will be there this year myself.

That I will be in the country for a badly needed two week holiday makes no difference. I am not going to make the long and expensive journey to visit him. Instead I am going to sleep and read books for two weeks. And probably cry a lot because my life is so fucked, but that's another story.

So that's where we're at. Nowhere. I'll let you know when that changes. I promise.

New beginnings

Suz' advice worked! A while ago I sent a general e-mail to mum, dad, B and A letting them know what our summer holiday plans were (pretty much going nowhere for various reasons). Then recently when I had to have an operation I sent an SMS to let them all know how the op went, and he called.

A couple of days ago he sent an e-mail telling me that B had visited (!). SHE didn't tell me anything about that. We're skilled communicators, we are... But that's great! Things are normalising. And of course he really likes her. How could he not; she's my (I know, I should say 'our', but it's hard to get used to) sister! And the best sister anyone could have.

So we're back in touch. I feel hopeful.

Deafening silence

Yes, he has gone quiet. Is he sulking? Is he angry? Did I step on his toes? All of the above...?

Well. I've thought about it all, about every possibility, and I could always rush in there and apologise for feeling the way I do, for writing what I did. But are my feelings not valid? Do I really have to apologise? Is that what is expected? I did ask for something a little more substantial than mere diary lists of his day or week, so I'm somehow inclined to think that he is not really helping the process of getting to know us or letting us get to know him. After two years I know him no better than after that first phone call.

So.

What does he want?

Torn

A has gone quiet. I think I came across much too strongly and now he is afraid to contact me at all. I can't put any words on his feelings; they are his and I simply don't know, but having read various adoptee blogs I can only surmise they are not of the good kind.

Here's another thing. I have another blog. And I'd rather only have that one; don't like splitting the various parts of my life into bits. Everything that happens to me is part of me, and so also the appearance of a half brother -- a pretty major happening. And yet I don't feel free to blog about him on my main blog. There are a couple of reasons for this, and they are damned complicated. I'll try to explain.

The basic reasons are that the main blog is read by people who know me, people who live in that aforementioned small community where so little goes on the main form of entertainment is to gawk at other people. Also, dad was a 'someone' in that society, and not only locally, but nationally. So the gawk factor increases. Anything out of the ordinary becomes the most superb form of entertainment, and even though I know it would pass I cringe at the thought of putting the family through those initial stages.

But I oh so want to be able to include A perfectly casually -- no, that's wrong. I want to include these posts on the main blog. The good and the bad. And then I want him to be included in general. Because there is no good reason not to, only a lot of bad reasons.

Here's the more self-centred reason why I don't mention him on the main blog. Bear with me; it will seem a little beside the point at first:

When I was little and about to start school the mother of a girl who was to start at the same time 'found' me and introduced the two of us. We were seven and six years old (me the younger) respectively, and this constructed friendship lasted until about two years ago. Which coincidentally is the same time A appeared on the scene.

L was an only child, and I was there to represent the sister/sibling she never had. Of course, at the end of the day we went to separate homes and I fought with my real sister and she fought with no one. Her mother had overdosed on child psychology and was in addition from a highly intellectual and wealthy family where there were no raised voices EVER, and everything was to be solved with a sensible and mature discussion.

Totally against my nature, but hey! I could go home and be normal at regular intervals! I think L's mum thought both me and my family a little primitive (sister, dog, noise... noise! God forbid!), but for the sake of L she put up with my presence.

At 16 I left for a year as a foreign exchange student in the US. That year changed me dramatically and I discovered that people liked the more outgoing and boisterous version of me; I made friends easily, something I had not experienced in the closed-off symbiosis with L. Those who didn't like my one-liners simply kept their distance -- you can't make friends with everybody. In short, this year allowed me to develop into what I would have been without L, and demonstrated to me just what an odd couple we were.

But I was only seventeen on my return, and I left all my American friends behind and had virtually only L to come home to. I had no time to make new friends before she came down on me like a ton of bricks stating that she found my new personality abhorrent and extremely hurtful and if I did not change back to the pleasant, quiet version who never, ever teased her or made 'hurtful remarks' (those were my one-liners) then our friendship would, sadly, have to be a thing of the past. Ever heard of emotional blackmail? She invented and perfected it.

From then on I lived a double life. For the next twenty years I never objected to anything she said. I left that to others and watched her bite their heads off in a paranoid tirade about how they were intentionally out to hurt her when they did not agree with her in a discussion in her own home. This was of course extended to 'in a café' (they were then out to humiliate her in public), 'away from her own home' where she was 'in an unfamiliar environment with nowhere to go'... dadada, the list goes on. Her focus on her own (continuously declared) vulnerability, which apparently was beyond and above all else's, was quite astonishing. And pretty much an invention of her mother's who had gone to great lengths to visit all of L's school friends' parents to talk to them about her daughter's vulnerable nature, the poor petal whose sensitive nature had to be protected at all cost. The result: the child was permanently tuned in to her own vulnerability, permanently on the lookout for anything that could be interpreted as a hurtful remark, and permanently oblivious to anybody else's feelings.

When she was not around I could breathe more easy. And I did. Around her I kept my trap shut, with others I was simply being me; loud-mouthed and opinionated. Twenty years. At one point, about five years into this prison sentence, she loudly stated at some gathering, 'C has become so nice!' as if I had won some sort of prize. All because I never expressed an independent thought. It did not feel good. But I was long since conditioned not to make waves around her and found when I got really angry about something I was unable to express it except by spluttering incoherently. An unfortunate trait I still struggle to change. This is why I write. It gives me time to gather my thoughts and get rid of the angry red fog that takes over.

In a way I hate her family. I hate their well-behaved mannerisms, I hate what they did to her, a woman now unable to express anger naturally; when she shouts it's like watching someone who slowly looks up the terminology of anger in a dictionary, then tries to follow the instructions. It's plain bizarre. And because she doesn't have that immediate access to anger she never loses her eloquence. She can out-manoeuvre anyone in a discussion or argument because she has, in reality, never been stopped by the fog. She is totally lobotomised by generations of well-behaved intellectuals. And yet I have never met anyone angrier than her, or in more pain from not being able to get over it.

So what does this have to do with me not writing about A on my main blog? Well, L has one more 'character flaw'. She is extremely judgemental. And with her eloquence, being at the receiving end of her various condemnations is less than pleasant. Since she became a born-again Christian (yes, there is that too, and I realise she is beginning to sound like a total joke now but I assure you this is real and no joke), since her religious revelation, she has also become obsessed with perfection of some, to me, incomprehensible sort. The moment she hears of someone putting a foot wrong, be it a politician, a friend or a close relative, she judges that person's entire life and character with a vindication as if her life depended on it, with sarcastic eloquence of which you are unlikely to have heard the like.

I can only imagine what she would have to say about dad were she to find out he'd kept such a secret for fifty years. I am extremely reluctant to allowing her the pleasure.

Back to what happened two years ago. I suddenly stopped just taking it. She was on her usual rant about others who had in some way stepped on her toes and it was my job to agree, also about people of whom I had never even heard. I wasn't being 100% cooperative, asked about what had led her to draw such strong conclusions, and when she related that one of those people she had a falling out with had called her 'controlling', the ensuing pause which I did not fill with the required 'oh what a bitch!' revealed that perhaps, just perhaps I was ever so slightly in agreement with the stranger.

The evening went downhill from there. Feeling that she was losing her grip on me, she upped the stakes and threw her vulnerability on the table. This she did several times, with me just getting quieter. As she wasn't able to provoke the reaction she wanted she came up with the final trump card. Her husband mistreated her! He is one of my closest friends and I knew him for well over a decade before the two even met. I introduced them in spite of my worry that they would clash in some huge disagreement over world politics or something minor. Something that would force me to hear her slag him off for all eternity for having the audacity to protest in the face of her superiority.

My knee-jerk reaction to this news was to react exactly as she wanted. 'Oh my god! I had no idea?! What does he do?' The tears were real enough. The self-pity was real enough. But the story that ensued had little to do with mistreatment. And perhaps even she was aware that she was about to go too far in her accusations. Because what I heard was nothing more than your usual husband-wife disagreements where he did not always see things her way, which essentially was disloyal in her view (just as I was being disloyal by not spending the evening calling everyone she poured scorn on either a 'bitch' or a 'bastard' when called on to do so).

The evening ended as it had started. On a low. There were no trains running by then so I had to stay the night, and I knew that as soon as she was out of bed the next morning, the torture would continue. I did not sleep. I was utterly exhausted. From having kept my mouth shut for twenty years. From trying to break out of the whole thing. From the memories of having tried to stand up to her in the past and not having the strength.

I caved. But not by agreeing. As soon as M, her husband, got up with their toddler I told him L and I had fallen out over person X calling her controlling, that I was too tired to stay and have her accuse me of disloyalty in various unpleasant ways until I could make some pathetic excuse to get out of there and that all I wanted was to get home and get some sleep. And then I left.

The next day dad told me about A.

Btw

I have a cousin who's adopted. Her birth family tried to contact her several years ago, but she decided not to respond. Instead she took a great deal of interest in our granddad and her adoptive family's history.

I don't know why. I've never asked her. Perhaps I should. Must think about that.

Phase II silence

I thought this might happen. People are quite predictable this way. Since I asked A to give me a little space (back off! you're cramping my style!) and tell me more about himself with the focus on being adopted (I'm soooo bored with the mundane 'hi-little-sister-I've-just-mowed-the lawn' e-mails) he's gone quiet. I know he still checks out my (other) blog, I know that much, but he has not replied to my very direct requests/demands.

I don't know what's going on in his mind, and to be honest, I don't know him at all, so second guessing is going to be a far-fetched exercise. Here goes:

He's hurt. That's basic stuff. Contacting us was a huge step for him, facing a form of rejection by the one person who seemed to be the most open and welcoming of the lot is a disappointment. No surprises there.

But I have not asked him to 'go away'. I've asked him to start again. In essence, that is what I've done. I can't give him a full family relationship with all the familiar intimacies that only knowing each other -- or at least of each other -- for many years can bring. So I have asked him to leave out the mundane that nobody else in the family would bother me with either and actually say something interesting. I don't CARE how you hang your toilet paper; HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING ADOPTED? What was your childhood like with that knowledge?

What I have asked of him is extremely hard. On both of us. And it will eventually be hard on the rest of the family too, and probably also on his adoptive mother, because he has to dredge up some truly emotional issues. And I wonder how he will do that.

I don't expect it to be all wonderful and happy, and I don't expect it to be all snot and tears either. From his initial e-mails he was a much wanted baby; his adoptive parents were unable to have any and when they were told, by their doctor, about a pregnant girl who could not keep hers they were able to follow the pregnancy from quite an early stage (albeit at a distance). So the trauma back then was not his, but his birth mother's. And I do think about her and what she went through and wonder what she is thinking now. I know she is still alive; that is all I know.

My own mother, when I was 15, pulled me aside with a very serious look on her face and said if I got pregnant she would be there for me and the baby would never be given up for adoption. I, being your typical teenager, gave a contemptuous laugh -- the thought seemed ludicrous to me who had not even had sex yet, let alone contemplated that it could lead to a new life. But now, with hindsight, I can't even begin to tell you how secure that made me feel.

Now I am asking my brother to go back over things that may not be all roses, but I am actually asking to share them. I am asking to get to know him better, the ugly side included. From his stance.

And I so wish I could meet his birth mother and hear her side.

I bet she still hurts.

And. I would like to refer to him on my other blog. I would like my dad to be ready for that. I actually want to include A in our lives. There has so far been no indication that dad or B are ready for that, though. Too many people who know them read that blog and it would come as a surprise, probably resulting in a period of local ridicule of the kind dad so fears. And in spite of my sister being one cool chick, she is also deeply concerned with keeping up appearances and staying in control, so if little C barges in and 'blows the whistle' we could be looking at a long time of seriously awkward silences... I very nearly caused that when I took it out of her hands to tell her own children and did it for her, losing my patience -- which was never great anyway -- with her insistence on waiting for the 'right moment'. In my experience, those never come.

I am still waiting for A to find the moment to break his silence.

Phase II?

I've spent a little time reading adoptee and birth-mother blogs. And as always with blogging the Americans are way ahead of the rest of the world. I haven't actually found anyone writing from my viewpoint, so I've been cruising the other viewpoints. But with my previous post in mind, my wish to just go into hiding and forget all about my brother, I have to admit that when I came across this post, I knew that turning my back was simply not an option. And how could I possibly anyway? I was the first one to open up and say 'come in!' and 'this is not a big deal'. It's only now, nearly two years down the line, that I crumble and don't find it ok at all. I've been so busy prodding everybody else in the right direction I haven't had the chance to deal with my own feelings.

So now it's crumble time and behaving badly time and not being a very nice person time just to create a little thinking space. Still with me after that sentence?

So in spite of ULB's post being one helluva heartbreaking cry for help itself, I posted my own cry for help in her comments section -- and she sent me the nicest reply with some really good advice and I suddenly felt much less alone! Even though she and I come from totally different directions.

I sent A an e-mail. I explained how I felt about the labelling. I explained that there was quite a big difference between him and us in that he has known most of his life that he was adopted, whereas for me and B he arrived with a bit of a thud not that long ago and we've not really had a lot of time to digest and adapt. And I told him a little more about dad's reaction (not all!) and how concerned I had been about that.

And I asked for a little distance. A little distance as one grants people one has never met. A little time to even out the difference between 2 and 50.

It is not what he wants. He has waited long enough. But I've asked him to tell me about his childhood, especially as an adoptee, in return (rather than constantly regurgitate the mundane lawn mowing, beers and sunsets -- which of course I did not say!!).

I'll let you know if he ever replies.

First meeting - with dad

I'm going to try to get back on track here, and put my own irritation on the back burner for a while.

I am glad to tell you that A met dad (and mum) before us. A had his focus firmly on me and B, but I am hardly ever around, and B was on holiday when A and his family was in the neighbourhood, so that's all there was to that. I knew of the upcoming meeting as A had sent me a couple of e-mails (all headed 'little sister') about his upcoming trip and, via me, testing the water and the family's openness towards a meeting. As well as our availability. I could only reply in the negative; not around at the specified time. Sorry. Secretly I was glad. I felt that things were in better chronological order that way.

The reports were unremarkable. What the actual feelings were is anyone's guess. Dad reported a meeting with a tall man with a tall wife and a tall son. He also said they'd talked about this and that, but nothing of great emotional importance. And why should they? A first, brief meeting limited by A having to get his family back to his hometown before sundown can hardly contain earth-shattering events. But both reported back to me per e-mail in positive, if subdued, tones.

I had the feeling that dad was relieved to get that meeting over with, he has been able to mention A in normal conversation since then. If not entirely at ease with it. I get the feeling he is testing it out a little; can he live with it? Can we live with it? Is openness better than silence?

Of course it is, but it's still a while before we reach total openness. B is still not overly enthusiastic; he labels her 'little sister' as well, and she finds it even harder to tackle than me. Her reaction, however, has been to ignore his pleas for contact as much as is possible. After all, she never was anyone's 'little sister'. And she never had the need to clarify a hierarchy in relation to me. Now there is this third person we somehow have to accommodate, and we both find it a little difficult. We're faced with this large, slightly oafish guy who resembles an overly friendly and slightly needy Labrador that gives you the paw all the time.

Hm. I said in the previous post that I was hoping I would feel more charitable towards him by this post, but it seems I don't.

And so I just blurted it out

I admit it. I am no diplomat. I replied much too fast and much too curtly 'you are aware that I have a name?'. And I added insensitively that I had waited rather a long time for him to get over his initial excitement.

Of course he got hurt. I didn't intend to hurt him, but as it had taken me so long to actually tell him, and the whole thing had grown out of all proportion for me, I didn't find the best way of bringing to his attention that perhaps, just perhaps it would have been nice if he'd granted me that little bit of distance that people who don't know each other at all grant each other.

I think that is what it is. To me, he is a total stranger. Same father or not, he is not somebody I would normally meet, make friends with, have anything to do with at all. Suddenly, one day, this total stranger barged into my life, demanding to be treated as if he'd been there all along. But he hasn't been there. There is a 40+ year history that I share with sister, mum and dad -- and a dog now long gone, all sorts of friends, a long and mottled education, various more or less colourful career changes, memories of 40 years that he can never, ever be a part of. Even if I were to write the family biography at this stage, there would be a 50 year gap between him being mentioned as conceived to his reappearance...

And so I have experienced his labelling as incredibly intrusive. We haven't even met yet. And, sadly, I have no real wish to meet him. And that, my own shortcoming in this area, my inability to feel any excitement at all at having gained a brother, that is what I find sad. I find it sad because I really do understand what he has been missing for all these years. After all, I had it. And I wouldn't want to have been without it. But... this, what this adoptee talks about is just not possible. It's asking for way too much when there's half a century of not even knowing of someone's existence.

Would I have felt differently if I had at least known through my childhood that he was out there somewhere? Well, I actually think I would. And I am sure we would not have been divided by 50 years then. So -- I'm all for opennes when it comes to adoption records. And removal of shame when an unwanted pregnancy is a fact. Because now, now I feel absolutely nothing for this stranger who has been (metaphorically) peeing on the lamppost outside my building for the past year.

By the next post I hope I feel a lot more charitable towards A than I do now. Keep your fingers crossed.

And another

Just received another e-mail irritatingly headed 'little sister'. It's so fucking annoying! When is he going to get over it? When is he going to stop peeing on every lamppost in my street? What's with this damned need to mark his 'territory'??

I don't want to be his damned 'little sister'. I want him to just go away.

First proper talk with dad

I rang dad. The conversation started with the usual small talk -- one can't just barge into sensitive issues, even if that is the approach I'm most used to. I also wanted him to take the lead in some way, set the tone for this heart-to-heart talk initiated by my wonderful mother.

Short awkward break ensued, then a total change of voice and "you have regular contact with Him?".
"Yes. A sends me e-mails regularly. He has told me quite a bit about his family."
"Well. I've started writing him a letter telling him about me and apologising and..."
"Dad -- I don't think he's after an apology, perhaps not even an explanation. Why don't I send you a couple of the e-mails he's sent me so you can get to know him a little better that way. Then you can write the letter."
"Oh. Ok. Perhaps that is a good idea."

I knew that A in no way was after some sort of conflict, or had any desire to humiliate dad. And for dad to go into long explanations and apologies at this point seemed -- pointless to me.

Since I, by now, was the one who knew A best I gave myself the role of "conductor" of the state of affairs and set the tempo. I had the most frank conversations with mum. She seemed to have the necessary distance to it all and was just about the best person anyone could talk to. She was also there all the time to monitor dad's moods and reactions and could give me instant feedback. Sister was at this stage fairly peripheral, for reasons I found out later.

Suffice it to say; I sent dad some of A's e-mails. Dad then wrote a letter which he sent to me first to keep me in the loop. I made no suggestions for changes to this letter, though he told me it had changed quite dramatically from its first draft which I never saw. He told me his first letter had been full of self-deprecating apologies, but as I could see, this new letter was quite neutral, more of a gentle introduction to himself as a young (ish...) man.

Though there are many different ways of handling this, the way dad, mum and I chose proved to work quite well. It was also partly dictated by the physical distance between us all, with A miles away in a totally different county, and me in another country all together. That fact may even have helped set the pace and keep things from erupting before we were ready for all the emotions. Things were left to bubble away quite nicely.

Second contact - and fourth - and fifth - and...

Well, brother and I started exchanging e-mails. I sent him one with a pdf attachment (how typically digital age) outlining the family tree and such standard facts, a little about dad's life and of course a little about me and sister.

Got an e-mail back stating that he was far more interested in me and sister than dad. Which I found strange, but perhaps that is normal? I don't have much experience in this department. Then e-mail after e-mail followed, and I seemed to have more contact with him than with my own -- sorry -- uhm, with my sister and parents. We kind of know that we're here and there and don't have such a strong need to communicate. I got a feeling he was trying to make up for lost years, all 50 of them, and must admit I ran out of things to say. He sent a lot of late-night e-mails telling me about -- having a beer, or watching the sunset and such.

I didn't always answer. Just didn't know what to say after a while. There's only so much to say after a bog-standard day.

He complained that sister never answered his e-mails. All I could tell him was that she never really does with any of us. Not really worth getting upset about. She's still there, if you know what I mean. That's what having siblings is about. They're there, somewhere. But because you don't marry them, at least not if you know what you're doing, you only have contact when you have to. You get together for Christmas to remind yourself why you left home. And then you swear to never ever go home again. That sort of thing.

You know, my sister doesn't normally call me on my birthday, nor I her. But he did. And I still couldn't understand what he was saying; kept having to ask him to repeat. And he opened the conversation saying 'hi! It's your brother' which had me completely baffled for a moment.

After a few weeks my mum called. Her report was short and to the point. "C -- you have to talk to him. He's stuck his head firmly into the sand again. He's depressed. And he won't talk about it at all." My poor dad. My heart broke. We may not be good a birthdays, but we carry our hearts on our sleeves.

Why I think he said no

I read in this blog that open records is the thing. That secrecy, refusing adoptees the right to know who their biological parents are is really bad, that it leads to all sorts of mental problems, that -- the theories are all there. And I understand and agree even. Mainly because as a person of quite liberal attitudes I can't see what the fuss is about, why there's supposed to be so much shame involved over a pregnancy. I'm not even sure the shame is about the baby, but that -- guess what -- now everybody knows you are sexually active! What a blow to mankind!

Well, it's a real shame when that leads to a 13-year-old getting pregnant, but that is what the abortion laws should be there to solve (and decent sex ed should help prevent). But why should there be so much shame involved once the pregnancy is a fact? And why so much legislation to keep the children from finding out where they come from? After all, it's not their fault.

And that was pretty much what I thought, that this is not such a big deal, that unless the 'kid' is a down-an-outer who is now going to come running demanding money and generally harass us, there is no reason to refuse him contact with the family, perhaps even regular contact, involvement as 'one of us'. What's the harm? Why turn it into a tragedy? WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

So I downplayed it. Fine, someone else came first. What's he like? You haven't met him? Ok. Would you like to meet him? No? Ok. I take it he would like to meet us, though? Does he have any contact with his birth-mother? No? She said adamantly no. Right. That must be a tad disappointing for him, don't you think? You said no to contact too? Oh.

It was this last bit that got me. The gut reaction 'no'. Because, you see, it felt all wrong. And now comes the bit where I'm going to philosophise over why he said no, based entirely on my own imagination. Because one can never really know what is going on inside another person's head.

I think he said no because of the way he was brought up. By a deeply religious mother who never admitted to ever having had sex despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Immaculate conception perhaps? OMG! The return of Christ, and none of us knew! Sorry.
I think he said no because of the place he grew up in. A deeply pious area, a tiny community where tongues easily wagged, and rarely in a kindly way. A place where gossip was the main form of entertainment. Where those who put a foot wrong received the highest gawk-factor and presented a free-for-all to be laughed at, talked about, sneered at...
I think he said no because he spent a lifetime getting away from that, building a career, creating a life and a lifestyle that he'd always dreamt of, taking control over his own destiny.
I think he said no because he lost his own childhood through the loss of a parent and was left with the main responsibility for his siblings (shouldn't this have made him more compassionate? ah! psychology takes no hostages -- he was trained through the death of his father to be completely reliable, to never let anybody down, least of all his family -- quite a burden for someone so young).
I think he said no because when A was conceived, he was busy trying to survive on next to no money while studying and he could see no way of adequately supporting a wife and child.
I think he said no because he let them down. And that has stayed with him ever since.

Though of course he did his best to forget. And the rude awakening, that the past always catches up with you, was something he could not bear having to face after half a century of burying his one mistake in life.

Oh, if we could all be blessed to only have made one mistake. :-)

But that decision was taken out of his hands by someone who, through circumstance, is essentially a stranger. And all his old fears resurfaced. How would it be received in that tiny, intolerant community?

Don't say it. 'Who cares?!' Someone who's cared all his life, cares. Someone who's painstakingly crafted a rich life out of nothing, cares. Someone who really, really doesn't want to let anybody down, cares. Someone who fathered an illegitimate child in the 50s, cares. Someone whose life was irretrievably coloured by the values of the 40s and 50s will not easily adapt to the more carefree 60s or 70s (I personally believe we have gone into reverse since then, starting in the 80s). Because back then, 'illegitimate' actually meant something. Something bad. Something that could ruin your life, your career, your future relationships.

So his face clouded over, life went from his eyes and he looked into the abyss of having failed, both the birth-mother, himself, but most of all the child who was given up. Rejecting him again was not as bad as having to face all that failure.

But inside every adult is the child that was rejected by someone, at some point in time. And I was not about to let it all fizzle out into my dad shoving his head back in the sand and my sister clamming up and being awkward. The only one who seemed to be perfectly laid back about it was my mum who said, well, it was before my time and I didn't exactly expect to marry a virgin.

But I think he said no because he still felt ashamed.

It's so easy to instruct others to feel differently to what they actually feel. I didn't feel any shame, so why should he? This is the twenty-first century; people don't think like that any more! This is NO BIG DEAL! Get over it! But the habit of a lifetime tells you differently.

Mixed emotions

I am in no way a stranger to emotions. Of any kind. But I was terribly unsure how to react. I was dealing with my own uncertainties, while also trying to find out what dad, sister and mum were feeling; possibly to find out what I ought to feel myself. You see -- I didn't really feel all that much. The first question I had asked dad was 'well, what does he want?' -- perhaps unkindly, suspecting the stranger of having ulterior motifs. Money, inheritance, what did I know. But no, he apparently only wanted to know if there were any siblings. To find out if blood really is thicker than water, or something. But no matter. I spent the initial few days and weeks tiptoeing around dad and sister who seemed to be pretty knocked out by it all. While I continued to think that perhaps there was something I should feel too? But all I felt was worry, about them, but most of all about dad who seemed very, very down. He totally clamped up and didn't talk about it.

The facts themselves were in so many ways totally unspectacular. A result of a brief affair while a student, dad and the birth mother realised they had nothing in common and that a marriage would only result in a divorce somewhere down the line. Not a great future. Abortion in the 50s? Fat chance. And, luckily, they were well enough educated to not go down the route of the knitting needles... So the unborn baby was put up for adoption. And dad did his best to forget. I guess in many ways he succeeded.

First contact

I got his number from sister and rang in the evening while mum and dad were watching TV.

I told him I was his youngest sister, presumably, as I knew nothing about his birth-mother's family. I can remember very little of the conversation. Just that I found him hard to understand and had to keep asking him to repeat what he'd just said. He spoke so fast. And in that dialect, a dialect I hardly ever hear so have no practice understanding. Perhaps he was nervous, I know I was. I only remember him cutting me off when I said it was rather a long time ago, that dad had been very young -- he blurted '27!' -- which took me a little aback. Well, I suppose that's not all that young, not exactly a teenage pregnancy thing. I guess he'd thought about it, studied the facts as he knew them from the paperwork. To me it was another lifetime, a past I in no way was a part of. Did he feel rejected by knowing that youth was not one of their excuses for giving him up for adoption?

We exchanged some more pleasantries, exchanged e-mails and hung up.

In the beginning

there was us. A small family; mum, dad, two kids, a dog. House, car, suburbia. It was all pretty nice, as far as I was concerned. I was the youngest.

Mum and dad were my best friends. They were great, never treated me as a kid, talked to me properly. I fought with my sister -- or perhaps she fought with me, I'm not sure, but we fought. But that's ok. We eventually stopped, sort of grew up and turned all adult and sensible. At least she did. She went off to set up her own standard family, and I started faffing around the world, unable to settle down.

And so it went. For years. I'd visit 2-3 times a year, spend every minute with mum and dad as intensely as I could, knowing that time was precious and I would soon go back to wherever my life took place at the time, to whatever job I was holding at the time. We laughed a lot. And sometimes we cried. We're a little sentimental that way. We cry together.

Sister lives close to them, so she spends her time less intensely with them and gets annoyed with them more easily. I can't afford to get annoyed any more, the time with mum and dad is too precious for that.

You're waiting for the upsetting break, aren't you?

Here it is.

Phone call made by strange man to sister while she is at work. The man says he is her brother, that they have the same father. Sister has no idea what to say. She is understandably shocked. Like me she thought she knew her dad. She thought the strange man must be some sort of nutcase. She asks for time, gets his number. But he asks her not to talk to dad.

That's strange. Why not? We've always talked to dad. About everything. There is nothing we can't talk to dad about. Or is there? And what about mum?

Of course she talks to dad. There is nothing else to do. She offers to tell me for him, to make it easier as she knows how close we have always been, that it might be less of a let-down hearing it from her. The let-down being that there was something I didn't know, that a secret was being kept. From me. By him. The number 1 person in my life.

But he told me himself. It wasn't easy for him, and the moment he told me I realised his world was falling apart. My dear, sweet, kind dad was suddenly looking into the blackest black of his life, and I could see in his eyes that he had no idea how to live with having kept a secret -- or perhaps, lived a lie -- for so long. And I knew, just knew it was up to me to find a way for everyone to live with the news. Including the stranger.

Because if there was one thing we could not do, it was to reject him. A man who had spent half a century not knowing his birth parents, not knowing if he had brothers and sisters. There is enough imagination and empathy in me to know that facing rejection for an adoptee must be absolute hell.

I'm going to skip the intervening first contact for now. Apart from hardly understanding a word he said -- he spoke with a heavy, northern accent, we're over the first awkward point, but have yet to meet face to face.

But there's one thing that really irritates me. He keeps opening every damned communication with 'little sister'. As if he's marking his territory and can't stop in all the excitement. I hate it. And I have no idea how to tell him not to as I don't know him well enough to know how he'd take it. And I still don't want to hurt him. Or my dad. Or my sister. Or mum, who has nothing to do with any of this. When is he going to get over it? Not even my sister refers to me as sister, and he's only my HALF brother. Should I perhaps open my replies with 'Dear HALF brother' in return...?

Of course not.

But...