Destiny...........

Our destiny is decided long before we are created.  At least that is what I believe.  At the moment we are conceived, our lives are mapped out for us.  However, I do believe that just as any road we travel, a wrong turn can take us down a different path.  Then it's up to us to get turned back around and on the right track again.  As I wrote in a previous blog, I was adopted as an infant.  My mama and daddy had 3 children; a daughter and 2 sons.  They wanted another daughter, but my mama could not have more children.  One of my mama's sister in-laws was friends with the woman who took care of me while my biological father worked.  He was a long distance bus driver, and would be gone for extended periods of time.  Knowing my mama and daddy wanted another child, and seeing me with her friend for these extended period of times, my aunt went to my parents, and told them about me.  She made arrangements for them to come see me one of the times I was with her friend.  My mama said I was the prettiest baby she had ever seen.  I had dark curly hair, dark skin, sparkling eyes, and legs with baby fat rolls that went on forever.  My mama said that she knew that she had to have me.  She said when she and my daddy went to leave that I cried, and called out "mama".  She turned away crying, and once outside told my daddy that she could not go back and see me again, because it would kill her if she could not have me.  She said she knew that I was meant for them and their family.  Arrangements were made for my parents to speak to my biological father.  He agreed that I needed to have a good home with both parents, and he knew he could not offer me that.  He said he would have to speak to my birth mother to see if she would consent to me being adopted.  My parents went to their attorney, and had papers prepared to adopt me.  They gave the documents to my biological father to take to his meeting with my birth mother. 

My birth parents were a love affair gone bad.  She had been married to someone else, met my father, and went back and forth for some time.  Her marriage ended when she got pregnant with me.  She got divorced and married my father 2 weeks before I was born.  Then approximately 6 months after my birth she abandoned me, us.  I traced a lot of what I know through Court records, and information given to me through family members that I have met over the years.  When my birth mother got divorced, it was a time when Florida was a "fault" state.  So divorce papers were very informative.  They told a story.  After meeting my biological father, I continued my quest to find my birth mother.  When I did finally find her, she had passed away just a few months before.  I had already located and met two of her children; boys, well men, and had began a relationship with them.  It was one of them who made the call when I located her.  See, they had been returned to their biological father when she abandoned all of us.  My father had taken them back to their maternal grandmother, which resulted with custody being given back to their father.  Sadly, their father passed away within like a year, and they were raised by an older half sister and her husband, who were physically abusive to them, and their situation had not been good at all.  But, my one 1/2 brother made that call.  Our birth mother's brother answered the phone.  I remained quiet.  Listening and making notes.  Her brother remembered my brothers, but I was the lost child.  The child her family knew very little about.  He proceeded to tell her story.....  He said she had been raped by her father when she was 12 years old.  No one stepped up to help her, and her mother blamed her for what had happened.  It was never spoken about, and she became wild, running away, and got pregnant the first time at like 14 or 15.  Then again at like 16.  She had two daughters before she ever married my brothers' father.  They were abandoned many times over, and the neighbors who kept them finally adopted them.  Well two different neighbors.  Then she met her sons' father, and they got married.  He too, was a long distance bus driver.  She worked as a waitress in the little diner in the bus station.  She had my two brothers, and it was while waitressing in that little diner that she met my biological father.  She had also been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and had other mental health issues which she never got treatment for.  This being a lot of the reason why she flitter fluttered around with no sense of place.  I to this day cannot understand how a woman could sit by and allow her 12 year old daughter to be raped by her husband, and then blame that child for it happening.  Hearing my mother's story helped me come to terms with why she abandoned me, and why she willingly gave me up.  We learned that after she gave me up for adoption, she had one more daughter.  She gave her up for adoption in Arizona in route to Texas.  She gave birth and handed her over to the adoption people before leaving the hospital.  She had 6 children total, and never raised any of us.  She did meet a man when she got to Texas.  They got married, she worked, and they built a life together there.  She never had anymore children.  All it took for her was to find that man who came into her life and love her.  He accepted her for who she was.  They were married for like 30 years before she passed away.  My brother tried to get him to send us pictures, but he wouldn't, and he told my brother not to contact him again.  It bothered me........  I got to thinking maybe it was in my brother's presentation.  I talked to my adoptive mother, and she encouraged me to write a letter to my birth mother's husband, and see if I would get results.  So that is exactly what I did.  I sat down one night, and started writing.  I could not tell you what I wrote, but it came from the heart.  When I finished it was three pages front and back.  I prayed and kissed that envelope before dropping it in the mailbox.  I didn't hear anything.  Weeks passed.  Then it was the week leading up to Thanksgiving.  I was planning to go visit my sister like always, and when I got home from work that one day and checked the mail, there was an envelope addressed to me.  The return address was my birth mother's husband's address.  It was kind of thick.  I could tell it had pictures in it.  I came into my house, and put everything down and sat down still holding that envelope.  After a few minutes I opened it.  There were pictures of my mother over the years since she had set her roots in Texas up to right before she passed away.  A small paper fell out, and when I picked it up I realized it was a copy of her obituary.  I laid the pictures and obituary to the side, and continued to unfold the paper.  There was a letter from her husband.  He told me of how he loved and adored my mother, and how she suffered every day over giving her children up, and the choices she made.  He said, she loved each one of us very much, and cried every night for us.  He said she was a beautiful woman inside and out.  The letter was from his heart.  I picked up the phone and called my mom.  I told her that I heard from him, and what he had sent.  I asked if I could bring them and show her and dad.  She was so excited for me of course.  So I went and shared with them.  I found comfort in that letter.  Not only for myself, but for her.  I knew she had found happiness.  As much as she could for what she had gone through.  I am so happy that she met this wonderful man who loved her, and took care of her.  We all need that.  I was able to put closure on these massive thoughts of what made her do the things she did, and it helped me understand that a woman is not bad for giving her child up for adoption.

I wrote a little about my biological father in my Father's Day blog.  When my birth mother left him, she left me, my two 1/2 brothers, and his two children; a son and a daughter.  My other biological 1/2 siblings.  My father took her children back to their grandmother as I mentioned before, and his children were moved from various relatives and orphanages.  None of these children deserved the lives that circumstances gave them.  When I say I was blessed.....  I am not lying.  I have since had the opportunity to meet my father's son, my oldest biological brother.  I have not yet met my sister.  I have met my father's only surviving sister.  She is a wonderful person.  I have met cousins......  This part of my family I am still getting to know.  They are great people.  They have accepted me....  It's like I am their missing link.  I have learned a lot about my father through them.  He too had many things going on.  Having served in two different branches of the military, he went into combat, and suffered what I guess today we call post traumatic stress disorder.  He was a definite ladies' man.  He married many times, and while there are 4 or 5 documented children he fathered, there could be more.  I plan to work on that eventually.  I want to figure out just how many offspring their were, and see just how many siblings I do have.  The town I grew up in was small back then. My biological father's family was all over the place. They were one of the staples in our town. I didn't know this until almost two years ago. It intrigued me how no one knew or how no one ever talked about it.  This part of my life is still a work in progress.

My family......the family that was my and is my destiny is pretty normal..........LOL!!!  My adoption was finalized with I was a little over 8 months old.  I had a mama and daddy, and a doting big sister and two protective big brothers.  My Grandma, who I will devote a very special blog to soon, was amazing.  Then there are the "sisters".  My mom's sisters who got that name from me because they kind of reminded me of the sisters off the Waltons.  I will get around to writing about them too.  I have some awesome cousins.  One them blogs as well.  She has an amazing story to tell too.  Her link is on my profile.  Check it out.  Since, my parents adopted me, they adopted two more boys.  So I have two baby brothers.  Well they are not actually babies, but they will always be to me.  My parents were always open with me about my adoption.  They let me know that if it had not been for them they wouldn't have me.  They never spoke badly of them.  Even when I went through my teenage phase of really not liking parents or any adult authority, and made derrogatory remarks about my birth mother.  My parents always defended her.  None of us knew back then what the circumstances were, but they reminded me that it had to be very hard for her to give up her child.  They knew she had a mental breakdown when she abandoned me.  They knew that she was not well at that time.  I was raised with love.  Saying I love you comes easy in the sense that my siblings and I were told we were loved.  We got hugs.......  Oh yeah, and we got spankings, and grounded, and all that stuff too.  But that family unit was there.  I think I mentioned in a previous blog that my parents are just a few short months away from celebrating their 59th wedding anniversary.  That to me is so awesome.

Years ago in my search for my birth mother, I located the divorce papers of my biological parents.  When I used the term of being the lost child......it made sense.  Because my adoption became final before they filed for divorce, the paperwork showed that they did not have any biological children born of the marriage.  So when my biological parents took that turn down the wrong road, they mapped out my destiny, and where I am today...........  Is exactly where God intended for me to be.  I love my family.......  Both families.  When people ask me about my real parents, I say these are my real parents.  They chose me to be a part of their lives.  They raised me, and help shape me into the woman I am today.  They never made me feel any different than the other children.  When I became a part of them.......  It was the real deal.  They are my real family.  My mama said to me about a year ago that if she had known what the other children were going through, she would have taken them too.  That's the kind of people my parents are.  

Peace!