Adoptive moms

Two years ago today my adoptive mom Shirley passed away peacefully in her bed.  Her last words were spoken to me over the phone while I was in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains visiting my biological mother Shanti.  My gut feeling was that she was about to go.  The last three weeks had been rough for her with difficulty breathing and she became more and more tired. Two days later as I flew into the United States her spirit moved on.

My mother Shirley teaching me something!

As I remember her I also think of the many adoptive mothers I have met through this blog.  These women are a breed of their own. 

My mother didn’t have the depth of understanding or the compassion to know me until her last year of life, in her 80′s.  Even then she still didn’t know the depth of what I had gone through as a little Indian girl in a community of no Indians.  She lived in so much denial about me with her belief that all was good and there could be nothing that bad about being adopted.

It was not that it was bad but it was difficult to adjust and conform to so many things as a child.  She really never took the time to understand me.  Although I think she truly loved me but just didn’t know how to be in a relationship with anyone, not just me.

For years I had a perception of adoptive mothers all being like her.  The kind of people who look good to the community, who to the outside world appear to be so compassionate and kind, but are slave drivers and unkind at home.  They used their adoptive children to make themselves look good without a care for the child’s mental well being.  They were do-gooders, telling the world all of the great things they did for others “I adopted Pushpa from India, she was starving and her mother didn’t love her.” 

These things drove me to despise and hate her to the point where at the age of 8 I would daydream of killing her with a knife out of my kitchen that we used for cutting meat.  In my eight year old mind I visualized the whole thing and feeling relieved with the outcome of her being gone.  I wanted her out of my life.

I forgave her years ago for the mean things she said and I forgave myself for being so difficult and having such high expectations of her.

Now, I find myself getting to know other adoptive moms on line and they bring tears to my eyes.  They are really moms to their kids.  They have compassion for their children, they want to know if they are doing the right things for them, they care more than some biological parents about their little Indian children’s souls and spirits.  These women bring me hope that adoptees can have mothers who are kind, who nurture them and who listen to their needs.

My mother was a teacher and taught me many wonderful things but these moms are more than teachers, they are moms.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

What is in a name?

I have always had my original Indian name but many adoptees do not.  There are many issues that come up with having an unusual name(I know all about this!).  What do you think about what is in a name?  Is it important to have your “ethnicity” show in your name or does it matter?  Please answer with all honesty!  Thank you!

Money can’t buy health or time.

Glenn and my mother

This morning my usual weekly phone call to my mother was laced with sadness.  She went to the hospital two days ago after an accident while on the bus.  The crash occurred while en route to what she calls her duty”, administering therapy to handicapped children.

There is an echoing voice in my head that responds to the guilt of not being in a position to give my family everything they need, telling me ”I am worthless”.  Why am I not better equipped in my life to help them?  Guilt seeps through every pore while the acid floods into my stomach as I envision the life that my mother lives in that cesspool.

She checked into the hospital with swollen legs, high blood pressure and pain from the accident but then realized that she didn’t have the funds to afford to stay the five days the doctor wanted her to stay for bedrest.  In my phone call she sounds lifeless, weary and cries that she does not want me to worry.  Muttering “your mommy has no long life”, as Pinky (my pre-teen niece) takes the phone and begins talking to me she tells me that “my grandmother is not doing fine”.  I ask for the truth, she promised me last year after they withheld it from me that my mother had a twelve day stay in the hospital that she would always tell me the truth.  After my voice of authority demanding “tell me the truth” commands  to Pinky she succumbs with a breath of relief  “my grandmother left the hospital because she didn’t have the money for bedrest and medication.”

I am devastated, knowing that she is home when she should be in bed in a hospital.  With voices in the background getting louder I ask “what is that noise?”  Pinky replies, “the neighbors have come to see my grandmother”, I reply with anger “why are all of these people there when she is supposed to be getting rest?”

I am frustrated because I can’t take care of her,  take her to the hospital where she needs to be.  What if she is really sick, what if I never see her again, what if she could die tumbles through my head at the rate of a roller coaster screaming down a hill.

Immediately I call Glenn to tell him and he promptly calls Western Union to make the money available to them to pay for the six days with medication and also extra money so they don’t have to worry.

 Money helps but it won’t buy health.

How do you help someone when you are so far away?  It is a long ways to travel and time I have to leave my family and business to go if indeed I do need to go.  I am never sure.  They don’t want me to worry so I don’t know the severity of the problems.

Two years ago I lost Shirley, my adoptive mom, but I am not ready to lose my biological mom that I’ve hardly known or seen the last 40 years and so badly want to see.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

a price for my soul

The aromatic incense swirls under my nose while the woman’s abyssal voice sings to the gods…her deep moans of faith reverberate through that which is immortal in me.  An energy draws from within my soul to bring forth hope and the desire to do my part to make this world a better place.

Something I often hear is “aren’t you glad you have a better life?”  Many adoptees have heard this from the moment they were adopted.  It always sounds to me as a judgement…what is a better life?  I don’t really know how to respond to that except by saying “how do we know what a better life is?”  I am the one who has lived this life without my family but with  so many opportunities and with my adoptive family  but I cannot even answer this question.  Material things are wonderful, food is a necessity(a luxury for some), shelter is a necessity(also a luxury for some), education is also a luxury for some,  but what is family?  There is the need for biological family, that which you connect on a genetic level and there is the need for people who are there for you and take care of you when you are unable.  How do we define a better life?  Is it to have opportunities and things or does it include love,roots and culture?

The “talk” within the Internet communities about adoption and these children we all keep hearing about that were adopted illegitimately keeps bringing up this issue of “what is better for the child?”  Some cases the child has been living under this false pretense of that the adoption was above board but then the truth comes out and then what?  Do we send the child back to a life in poverty by our standards to live with their “real” families or do we keep them here because we have provided a “better life” for them?

In some cases the money is what is at the heart of this issue.  Money traded for a child, a human with real feelings and a life to live.  There is so much at stake for all who are concerned in adoption and that is why the value of that soul can be really high to the commodities trader.

Put a price on your soul, your spirit,  your life.  What dollar amount will make you feel good?  What is your worth?  We as adoptees know there is a price stamped on our forehead of how much our parents spent to get us.  It is just difficult sometimes to swallow that there was money exchanged for my life, my soul.

As for the majority of adoptive families, money is not an issue because they have the best of intentions and would do anything, they are operating based on emotions.

In the psychology of business the emotional buyer is the one who is best and easiest to “close the deal” with.

Regardless of how my experience with my adoption has been I can’t help but wonder if all of us adoptees are commodities in a game of trade and a “better life” is the justification.  A price for my soul.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.   

citizenship and lies

Proudly with the American flag, my mother and her students

 

The American freedom seal proudly adorns my certicate of naturalization on an original version stamped “Petition No. 897”.  A small photo with my nine year old almond eyes and big teeth beaming of bold possibilities is glued over an embossed American seal.  On “this 25^th day of  February in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy two”, I became an official American citizen after three and a half years of living in the United States.

 It sounded like a big deal but truly I didn’t know too much about the reality of becoming a citizen of the United States.  It just seemed to be a day filled with even more pressure to make my adoptive mother proud of me to the public.  She seemed proud, but she kept telling stories to the newspaper reporters of how I was found under a house.  I wanted to crawl under a rock and die of embarrassment.  She was not telling the truth but I never spoke up, I was too afraid of her to speak up.  Instead I harbored anger and contempt and buried it deep within until the next day when I saw the articles in the newspaper.  Then I spoke up and said “the newspaper is lying, it says that you found me under a house” she replied with “oh Pushpa well you did live under Rabeya’s house.”  There were three local papers that covered the story of 13 of us who received our citizenship but their focus was on my story of living under a house.

The truth was that I lived in an apartment downstairs from Rabeya(adoption maker) not under her house.

 

Recently I reacquainted with a classmate that was in my class the year that I was sworn in under oath as a citizen.  This is her recollection of the first memories of me.

 

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“We were gathered together in a class room to celebrate something. I knew because there was a cake or cup cakes, with some sort of patriotic in theme. An unrecognizable woman went to the front of the room to announce something.
She conveyed the exciting news that we were all being invited to celebrate with Pushpa her citizenship. It seemed like it was a very exciting occasion for you. But when I looked at you, you did not look that happy about it, maybe you were embarrassed by all the attention. So it was sort of weird trying to be all celebratory but you were not in the mood it seemed.
Of course I wondered when I would get my “citizenship” party.

 On our way out to the playground, I remember hearing this story.
This is a crazy story because it is what the kid said and my imagination mixing together. It is so nice to now know the true story and to see pictures, they are really wonderful.

 Mr. and Mrs. Deerdorf were touring through India and came upon a house and heard a baby crying. They went to the basement and found Pushpa abandoned in a high chair with the tray in place.

 In my child’s mind, your adoptive parents were dressed in safari outfits walking through an over grown jungle. I had no idea what India was like, it just sounded far away. The house was one like you would find in the US because I didn’t know what homes looked like there either. The house was abandoned and you were in a high chair with thecrying and wondered how you could have survived like that without food and water? Your adoptive parents found you and took you home with them.

 

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When I first read this, I laughed but I also wondered what other stories were told that were not true and how people must have perceived me as a person based on these lies.  I never knew whether to be happy or feel like a liar to the world to fit my mother’s story.  This was supposed to be a joyous occasion but was tied up in falsities and lies and I didn’t have the freedom to speak up and be heard.  What I said was quickly swept away as unimportant.

 

 

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.   

  

Insatiable need

In the outdoors at 10 years of age

Welling from deep within I find myself filled with emotions bubbling to the surface.  I recall the vivid childhood memories of enjoying days on a yellow rubber boat floating all by myself on Little Cultus Lake in Oregon.  Laid out on my back in my little floral pink bathing suit listening to the softly lapping water on the waters edge with nothing but blue sky, a breeze that became a powerful wind as the afternoon swallowed the day, and mountains standing so proudly as if at attention to the Gods.  Summer vacation was at it’s finest.  These days were so serene, not a care in the world.  Pure enjoyment for the finer things in life that included fresh caught fish fried in a black cast iron pan in our camper and mountain air that smelled of newly dropped pine needles .

Conversation this morning with my mother in India has reminded me of these moments. 

She is in need of a trip to the mountains.  The doctors have given her orders to go to the mountains because of her health.  I would do anything for her to just have a moment of that experience from my childhood.  I feel so helpless sometimes because even if she is not the one who raised me she is still my mother.  That connection is undeniable.  Over the phone she giggles like a small girl while talking about how she used to nurse me and that I bit her so hard she ended up with an infection.  She nursed me until I was almost four years old.  Her dreamy voice while indulging herself in her past recollection of our relationship bores a hole through my heart and fills me with desperation.

We knew each other until I was six and she was nineteen years of age.   She tells me stories about how I always wanted the most expensive saris in the windows,that I begged her for ice cream and that we saw a film about Paris and I said I wanted to go there.  We had a relationship, one that was a mother and a daughter. 

Now as an adult I feel it has almost become the opposite, me wanting to take care of her and get her out of that hell of a life she is in.  Her health suffers from her living standards and she spends her days yearning for time with me. “I only see small face” she says, when talking to me.  It is difficult for her to see me as an adult because there was so much lost time in between then and now.  She dreams of cooking for me and taking care of me but she doesn’t realize that I am such an independent person who has lived in independent survival mode most of my life and would not even know what to do with a mother doing these things for me.  It is easier for me to take care of her and be the strong one who has all the ability to change her life and bring her comfort.

How can I make her life better?  What can I do?  I feel overwhelmed at the thought of all of the things I need to do for her and for the rest of the family.  They never ask for anything but I feel this insatiable need to help them as much as possible. 

The mountains too were my healing.  I spent so much of my childhood exploring the outdoors and pondering life.  It kept me sane being in the outdoors and feeling the power of nature.  I cried for my mother, family and life in many awe-inspiring places.

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© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.