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.