While I was talking to my dear friend about her genealogical disruptions, she said an interesting thing... she was telling me that she found out, as she was searching for her genetic father, that in the state she was born in legislates that one can "only compel a prospective biological father to do a DNA test if the child is under 21". She is in her forties and thus, she said, "I am at his mercy to do a DNA test or not".
She has not heard from him about her request and probably never will. She talks about this as a "deep and abiding shame" ... the not knowing ... She told me "you and I didn't ask for this". And she, like me, is done waiting for the mercy of others to acknowledge and validate her existence.
Today, a short while later, I found the bravery to finally ask my potential genetic brother to take a DNA test. My potential genetic sister said that she would take a test, but has not. She mentioned in passing one day when I was with her that "it would be funny for that test to come back and say he is not my father". I haven't asked her to take the test again because the lies surrounding my potential genetic father are vast and it is very possible that her worst fears could be realized. I would never want to do that to someone else, this thing that has been done to me, this bastard-ness. That is mercy.
My potential genetic brother said he is "leaning toward yes on the test" and attributes this to his deep sense that we are siblings. I adore this man. I hope he is right. I also am lost in the reality that I must wait for him to hopefully say yes. I have to hope that he will show me mercy and that this mercy will compel him to do a DNA test so that I know who my genetic father is or is not. I am now praying that my brother is compelled to mercy.
What is mercy in the life of the genealogically disrupted. We the bastards and cast aways... what is the single merciful act that we are hoping for from our genetic relatives... from out genetic parents. We are looking for the mercy of acceptance. We are looking for the mercy of truth.
The law is not merciful. The law does not fall down on the side of the genealogically displaced. In my friend's state and in my birth state of *fucking* Texas, we have no legal rights through which to compel our genetic relatives to see us, talk to us, tell us the truth. We are not asking for anything from these people in the way of material compensation nor financial inheritance. We have made good on our own. We have both made very good. We are asking these people to recognize that they and/or a relative created us and walked away. And, no matter how uncomfortable this reality makes them - the shame and embarrassment that our bastard-ness represents - we suffer every day ... mercilously.
There is no merciful release from these unwanted bodies. There are so many adoptees, surrendered babies, and *motherless/fatherless* children who lose this battle and take their lives. Death is a mercy. Those of us who continue to fight our abandonment and dislocation, we receive no mercy. We sit in wild envy of the few reunion stories that result in grown children made whole by a family that receives them with mercy and loves them with grace. The rest of us either don't know, don't search or live in this merciless thing that we call adoption reunion where already harmed and scarred adult children wait for the tiniest of mercies - an email, a facebook request, a meeting, a hug... No one should have to live like this.
It colors everything we do. Non-bastards can be unkind in their offerings of "let it go" "they don't deserve you anyway" and "you are better off without them". This is something, abandonment and genealogical dislocation, that we can never let go, outrun nor forget about. We cannot stop CARING that our PARENTS didn't want us or that our FAMILY didn't do what was needed to keep us in their midst. They may not DESERVE us and we may be BETTER off (physically and financially) without them... but they are still OURS and our banishment is violence. Period.
Here is what I do not get. Here is what I will never understand. It would be so very simple to start healing those of us who have been genealogically severed from our genetic family. It would cost nothing to make us feel, if not completely then proximally, whole. There is a way that genetic families could wrap themselves around their bastards understanding that babies, children and adult children are not the cause of their shame.
We didn't do this. We made no choices around our conception and birth. We did not choose to be severed and surrendered. We did not choose the lies that were told around our birth and dislocations. We didn't choose to be the horror that we are to you.
We didn't do this. Please, show us Mercy.
They, however, have chosen to abandon us ... again. They have chosen the violence of ignoring us, denying us, circumventing us, relocating us, erasing us, legally blocking us and putting us in the position to compel them to mercies that one should simply have access to in reunion.
They, however, have chosen to compel us to stay away, to not disrupt their lives, to keep their secrets and to tell their lies. These are violences... this is the deepest of harms. Where is the mercy? Why isn't mercy the first response.
My friend shared, and it made me weep because of how bravely she shared, that her potential genetic father asked her to "not call this number again" because his wife didn't know. How genetic relatives choose to protect their pre-reunion realities in these moments is a testament to how non-existent those who were severed from "the family" are in their lives. It is a testament to how thrown away and truly severed we are.
In my case, I used to wonder if they were looking for me. Whomever "they" were. I am now, maybe at this very moment, accepting... realizing... no one was looking for me at all. The genetic relatives I have connected with did not know about me. My potential genetic sister told me that she would have raised me as her own along with her daughter who is two years younger than me. That was the most loved I have ever felt. That wasn't just mercy, that was also grace and a deep love I couldn't ever have imagined.
To have mercy to give... that is a powerful position. To withhold mercy... that is an intentional act of violence that should be reserved for those who have done irreparable harm. Adoptees, the disowned, the displaced, the lied about and the hidden adult children - we bastards - we have harmed no one. To have mercy would be to look beyond the guilt and shame and see the fractured children left behind by family members. To have mercy would be to see that we need to be cared for more than the person who abandoned their children needs to be hidden, sheltered and protected.
For me, this is the place of the most pain. Potentially this hurts worse than knowing I was given away and not wanted - because there could always be a *good reason* got my adoption. That is what I was socialized to believe.
But, there is never a reason to withhold mercy. That is just an intentional decision to do harm.
More soon...
Baby Girl (Seeking Mercy)
