the truth be told

My mother and I

 

What is the truth?  How do we know who is telling the truth in our lives?  This is a question that is a never ending unraveling mystery for me.  Once my mother told me her story I wanted to be fair to all involved in the adoption of me(notice I didn’t say “my adoption”).  I returned with this story and wanted to share it with mother Shirley knowing that she has been one to fight for the underdog, the one with less abilities to stand up for themselves whether financially or intellectually.  She was active in the community helping mentally ill people, the poor, the elderly or anyone that needed her help.  Although she never showed much of a compassionate heart in her verbal expression her actions showed that she wanted to truly make a difference in people’s lives.

That January of 1994 started a year of fact finding, fact checking through every piece of documentation that I had in my house that pertained to my adoption.  I began to search for the truth in every nook and cranny of my life.  Starting with my adoptive mother Shirley,  I made the phone call to her excited and emotional because she would know more than anyone about the details of my adoption. I also knew she would feel that Shanti had such an injustice done to her. 

I picked up the phone from my  townhome in Florida calling Shirley to let her know about my trip to India to see my mother.  She was a two ringer…meaning you knew if the phone rang more than twice she was  not home or outside in her yard.    Just as usual she picked the phone up at the end of the second ring, “hello” in her usual formal voice while answering the phone  with a half of a question mark at the end of hello.

We began our usual formalities about the weather in Oregon and Florida and then I went right to “I am still feeling exhausted from my trip to India and returning to work so quickly”.  She replied with “how was India, I have always wanted to see India.  I love the people from there.”

I replied quietly “it was amazing and you know I saw Shanti”.

“I didn’t know if you were definitely going to see her or not but you did huh?”  “Yes, and she told me her story about my adoption” I said carefully. 

My mother Shirley had a personality that could never deal with anything emotional.  Any deep conversations were not a part of her relationship with me.  She cried if I brought up anything emotional especially if it had anything to do with our relationship.  So I found myself walking on eggshells in most conversations because I wanted depth while she was like a fish floundering out of water contorting with every single word that I spoke.

 This was a good time as any to ask her questions about details that were missing in my adoption papers and also to tell her that she adopted me without my mother’s consent.  As the conversation rolled I gingerly spoke “Shanti told me that she didn’t know that I was adopted.”  Shirley replied with disbelief “of course she knew, Rabeya(adoption maker) told her. Maybe time has made her forget that she didn’t want you.  She doesn’t want to think that she could have left her child now but she did.”  This time those same words I had heard for 25 years that made my heart ache didn’t connect anymore with me. 

“I saw into my mother’s eyes, she is not a liar and she loves me” I proclaimed in defense.  After a few more sharp words between us I hung up and stopped talking to my mother.  A year passed without verbal communication while I searched through every document and old letters to prove to Shirley that my mother wasn’t lying.  I finally gave up while realizing that I didn’t need to prove anything.  Shanti was my mother and I know what her truth is and that she indeed loved me, the details of  how I got sent to the United States didn’t matter. 

Years later Shirley and I had healed our issues and once again had a conversation about this matter again.  This time Shirley stated “I wouldn’t put anything past Rabeya, she would do anything to get what she wanted.”

My conclusion was that Rabeya swallowed the truth to her grave while two souls suffered on continents 13,000 miles

apart.

 

© 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.

The healing of my heart

An intense conversation

 

An expansive bright blue sky with billowing white clouds hung over ridges and deeply falling sharp valleys.  The intense bright sun swept through and spilled onto the floor while the open door embraced and framed the striking beauty of the rugged and powerful middle Himalayas.

 

Shanti(mother) and I

    As we sat enjoying the warmth of the sun melting away the chill of the high altitude and early morning, my tiny little mother went on to say “you my baby Pushpa, you always my baby”.  I smiled only in acknowledgment and lacking in emotions.  I still harbored anger in thinking about what I was told all of my life by my adoptive mother, Shirley.  Repetitively haunting my mind just as it did from Shirley’s lips “your mother didn’t want you, she didn’t love you.”  I wanted to just be present to being with my mother instead of living in my past hurts and sorrow.  I studied my mother Shanti’s face and made excuses in my mind that maybe she was too young to love me or maybe she didn’t know how to love a baby like me or maybe I was just such a tempermental baby that she couldn’t love me.  In seconds I searched for every excuse to make this woman, my mother, not guilty of not loving me.

She kept searching for words in Hindi and smatterings of the English language as gigantic tears rolled down her smooth cheeks.  As she began to say “Rabeya, boarding school, Thomas no good” mixed with words that were absolute gibberish to me I became pinpointed in my listening.  The body language, emotions and intensity of desire for communication made it very clear that she had something important she wanted to tell me.  I had no clue what it was but she had my every bit of attention zoned in on her now.  This level of intensity and depth went on throughout most of the afternoon and ending with her story of my adoption bringing light to an incredible inhumane tragedy for her.  Her “baby” being taken from her without her consent or knowledge.  Her years of praying in the cesspool of a neighborhood she lived in while waiting for my return.  Hoping and glancing down the street in hopes of me to come running back to her arms at any moment. And the words “I love my child” flowering from her mouth, began in an instance, the healing of my broken heart. 

The stories she wove together were of deceit and great loss.  One of victim and villain.

This began my search for truth.

© 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.

Charismatic Thomas(bio. father)

Thomas, Shanti and Champa '69

The days were long sitting on my floor waiting for my mother and father to come home.  It is not clear if it was only minutes or all day but none the less it seemed like forever.  As an adult, clear images of my home as a toddler still flash as still photos and archaic film imprints in my mind.  The aching is so deep right now that it renders me fearful to even revisit it.  But as a dear person wrote to me and said “the truth will set you free”, this is a truth that must be shared publicly.

My home as a child was a miniscule downstairs room in an apartment building in the heart of the city of Kolkata.  My mother, father and I lived in this one room and shared a meager existence.  My mother being 13 when she birthed me and my father much older, close to 30 years of age, had no other children at this time.  There were no siblings until a month before I left for America at the age of six.  It was the three of us for six years.

These early years were spent sitting on the dirt floor of this room waiting for my parents to come home.  I recall as a two to four year old the torture of being in this place alone.  The floor gritty and earthy, one faded yellow light bulb hung over the room with the only natural light seeping under a large wooden door locked from the outside.  The rustle of others as they walked by and scolded their children or conversed with one another was the connection I had to life outside of this room.  I sat and waited and waited,  stomach twisting and grumbling, mouth dry from thirst but no one came.  A white cotton cloth blemished brown with the dirt of the floor hung around my waist barely covering my body.  My ears fixated on listening and listening for a voice outside that hinted the whispers of my parents.  But nothing.  Only the clanking of life outside was my focus.  What seemed like hours later finally came to a close as off in the distance the familiar voices of my mother and father arguing became closer and closer until they were at the door.  Hearing the unlocking of the door I waited to see them and the daylight that followed them inside.

The argument continued with very little verbal acknowledgement of me as my father scooped me up in his arms.  His big teethy white smile and eyes that penetrated through me as he carried me to a small counter top drew me in.  My mother continuing to argue and grabbing Thomas while he laid me down on the counter and began touching my body, kissing my body and smiling through his black mustache.  She, hitting him and grabbing him while he took one arm and tossed her back against a wall was the last straw.  She sobbed and ran outside.

As I felt my body floating and came outside of it while he poked and prodded and mouthed my tiny frame I no longer felt the sensation of hunger or thirst, just nothing.  All the while the charismatic smile and intense eyes never faded.

Thomas was one who was looked at with respect by the people he worked for and the foreign dignitaries he met through his job at a the nearby tobacco plant.  As the chosen man to serve the dignitaries he had earned accolades of greatness and compliments of his “handsome” looks and charisma.

© 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.