Hello and Goodbye

Hello and Good-Bye

Have you ever had to say Hello and Good-Bye in the same sentence?  I have, very unexpectedly.  As some of my oldest and dearest friends know I was adopted at birth and my birth mother was my salvation, my hero and was on a pedestal so high no one could reach her.  She saved me from hours of abuse and got me through years of torment and pain.

I never wanted to know my birth father.  I had a good adopted father. A good decent man who loved me, treated me well, but left me at the age of 9 and walked away and I barely saw him after that.  He got himself a new family and felt at times he forgot about me.  

It was about the age of 10 that I really started yearning for my birth family.  Claiming they were mine and not the horrible mother I had.  I knew in my heart and soul I would one day I would find them, and all would be well at last. 

This was an interesting time frame because it was at this age that unbeknownst to me my birth father ended his life and probably why I never had a desire to search for him or know him. 

My abuse started when I was 9 and went until I was 13 and I truly believe it was by his grace that kept me through all those hours of abuse and suffering.  My guardian angel, my mercy, my hope, my inspiration, my greatest love of all.  Even though I never knew it.

I knew the story of my parents, at least what I was told, which turned out to not be totally true, but at least the ages were the same as I was told.  So, I set out to follow in my parent’s footsteps, on purpose.  I happened to be a year late.  My mother had me when she was 16 and I had my first child when I was 17.  Adoption, abortion was totally out of the question and no one even brought up the subject because they knew my position as I had talked about it for years and years.

An adopted person has one great desire and that’s for them to have something that is there’s.  Completely there’s.  A bloodline, a child.  Something no one could ever take away and would always love me and I would always love it and we would never be apart.  It was my solemn vow.

When I finally searched for my birth family and found them in 1997 my birth mother asked me about my birth father and I told her that I really had no desire to know him.  She talked me into at least finding out about him.  So, I agreed.  She said that she would investigate it and that was the end of that.  I didn’t think any more of it.

Then it wasn’t long before she called me with the news that would rock my world and turn it upside down.  She had located my father’s brother, Uncle Arthur and had a beautiful visit with him.  Laughing, crying and reminiscing over my father for hours.  

When she called me, she couldn’t find the words to tell me and finally told me he had passed away.  He was at the age of Vietnam, so I asked her if he died during the war and she said no, paused for what seemed like a lifetime and said slowly, tears flowing slowly…he took his life.

Hello and Good-bye!  I felt my breath caught.  I felt numb.  I felt sick inside.  I felt tears flow I never knew existed for my father.  The pain in her heart and voice was beyond description.  I’ve never heard such pain in a person’s voice in my life.  Our conversation ended quickly after that.  Her pain deeper than my own. 

It wasn’t until 3 years later that she finally told me the story of her and my father.  The greatest love of her life and will always will be.  No one on the planet will ever compare to the love she has or shared with my daddy.  She taught me this love, she taught me this sacrifice, she taught me his honor, his strength, his determination and his pain. His intense, indescribable pain. 

When my father and mother found out they were expecting me it was in 1964, a time when adoption was the only solution for unwed teenagers and it wasn’t an option.  These two loved each other more than anything on this earth and my father was convinced he was going to protect both me and my mother.  So, he devised a plan and told my mom to prepare somethings and be ready at any time and he would come for her.

It was several days later he came for her, stole a car and off they drove to Idaho to get married where they could get married at the age of 14.  They had car trouble along the way and some nice people helped them one night and got them back on there way.  They reached Idaho and went to get married and discovered they needed a permission slip from there parents to get married.  My father was upset because he would have forged one, so off they set to San Diego. 

A road trip set for a movie script full of stolen cars, robberies, sleeping in cars and finally making it to San Diego a day before my father’s cousin ship came into port where he would help them get married.  So, my father took me and my mother to Disneyland.  My first trip!  What a special day that was.  I can only imagine!

They met up with my father’s cousin and he was having a party and invited my mother and father and they agreed to go and my father was always very smart on where he parked, but this night he parked the car on a one-way street the wrong way and the police were called and realized the car was stolen.  They were taken in. 

They were in state’s custody for several months until it was discovered my mother was pregnant and the FBI was involved because they crossed several state lines and they really didn’t know what to do with these two teenagers.  So, off they went back to Washington.  Mom went to go back to her Father and my Father went to live with an Aunt in Idaho.

They never saw each other again after that airplane flight.  Never!

My mother spent the rest of her pregnancy making me baby clothes, knitting and sewing and told and believed she was going to be able to keep me.  Little did she know that was all a farce.  I don’t know what my father was told.  

The day she went into labor she was dropped off at the hospital entrance and her mother drove away.  Alone, scared and hopeful.  Hopeful she will finally see my father finally again.

I was born, whisked away and she was never knowing what she had.  She never knew until I found her 27 years later.  Can you imagine?  It’s unfathomable to me.  It had all been arranged behind her back for the adoption and she signed the papers, released from the hospital, married off and on her way to Kentucky with a new husband, all days from giving birth to me.  Hello and Goodbye, Mommy!

Me, I left the hospital 5 days after birth with my new family.  My fate set.  Now, my father was finally allowed to come back to Washington because I was gone and my mother off to Kentucky, so he couldn’t find either one of us and his mother told him I had died at birth.  I can’t imagine a mother doing that to one of her children.  I simply can’t comprehend if you love your child how you can tell such a lie and see the devastation in their soul.

The news did just that.  Destroyed his soul.  He quickly married and had 3 children one right after another.  This is very common with birth parents, they have replacement children to fill that gap, but it never does.  My father became a raging alcoholic, had a divorce and had a poor relationship with his 3 children.  My 3 siblings knew there was a baby, but that the baby had died, so I was mentioned but I don’t know how often or for how long.

One of my brothers won’t acknowledge me and the middle brother and I have spoken many years ago, but we have lost touch.  I have never talked with my sister.  I have had much contact with my father’s brothers and family and I have many treasured items that were my fathers that are among some of my priced possessions.  

In the story of my father protecting his little family and running away to save us and keep us together I grew to know of his unbinding love, his eternal commitment, his promise to always be there for us no matter what. 

My daddy sang to me a special song, played the guitar to me while in uterine and they named me, Elisabeth Ann, called me Beth.  My dad was a rebel, a smoker and clever.  He loved his alcohol as well.

However, once I learned in that phone called…. Hello and Good-bye…. I gained a father I never had before in my life.  A man who is still my protector, my confident, my guardian, my shoulder to cry on and the only picture on my nightstand.  The only picture that travels with me everywhere I go.  He’s on my key chain and he’s always in my heart.  I usually don’t talk about him until July and December, but for some reason I felt it necessary to write this now.  He is the greatest love in my life.

Is it weird to say that my very best friend in my life is someone I’ve never met?  I can say that about my Daddy.  He is my best friend, my truest friend, my confident, my protector, my salvation, my rock, me should to cry on when in need and I always know he is there whenever I’m in need.

To some, mostly everyone that sounds odd or even unreal and that’s ok and I frankly don’t care.  But, all that matters are how he makes me feel.  How a man that never mattered to me all my growing up years became my hero on that fateful day in 1997.  The wounds are so raw for my mother that the tiniest bit of salt pierces her very existence.  No amount of pain she ever experiences in life even compares to her pain over losing my father. 

I know this for a fact, I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it with her and I’ve felt it in her tears and her face.  She has such deep pain over that period of her life.  The adoption, the loss of me, the loss of my father.  She lived it every August, every holiday and I’m sure a lot of other days too.

I don’t know if my father was ever told I was alive, I’d like to think his mother grew a conscience and told him, but my gut tells me she was a cold and heartless woman and I have no love loss for her or my grandfather.  I know my uncles often wondered about that “lost” child, maybe seeing the pain and the destruction in my father made them think that. 

How can a mother watch her own son self-destruct before her eyes and be OK with that?  I can’t imagine it.  I truly can’t.

So, hello and goodbye Daddy.  Hello to a life we had together for a short time in history, but shaped so many lives in the process.  Good-bye to a life of pain and misery and now filled with peace in your heart and safety in your soul.

I pray you are happy, at peace, at home, comforted and rest.  I see you as often as I can, but you are always in my heart, mind and soul.  You already know this though.

Thank you for being my Daddy, my protector, my defender and my comforter.  Thank you for the gift of music in my soul, I treasure it immensely.  Thank you for the love I feel every day, every minute, every second.  

  

Hello and Goodbye…but not goodbye as you are in my life each day for now and for always.  I love you now and for always.

Beth