So tonight I realized that it's been ten years since I last saw my birthmother. I don't think about it much . . . sometimes it comes up in conversation and people are like, "wow, do you still keep in touch with her" and I shrug and say "no, she sends letters sometimes but her letters are rather passive agressive." She is a schizophrenic sociopath, after all. And I smile earnestly like "hey, what are ya gonna do? But I'm just fine, don't worry." But geez. Am I really old enough to be a decade removed from someone? She wrote a lot of letters until Sarah was born, seven years ago. I had already stopped writing back so it didn't matter. Somewhere along the line I had realized that she was not a mom . . . that it's not proper parenting when kids wake up sick and vomit outside as they wander around looking for their mother. That Moms don't leave their three-year-old alone in a seedy motel while she goes out. And Dr. Phil certainly wouldn't recommend that kids hang out while their mother prostitutes herself for drugs. So I was an angry child. Didn't she love me? Why didn't she take care of me like she was supposed to? So anytime my grandpa called to let me know she was in town, and that she'd like to see me, the answer was an easy "no." Because I would probably cry, and she'd think I missed her. No. Then years went by . . . years and years. I lived my life. She wrote sometimes, and I cried three years ago when she had her fourth child and decided at the last minute not to give him up for adoption. Gradually, I realized that she did love me. She just couldn't bear it out because she couldn't even take care of herself. And she still writes to me because she does love me. And suddenly it's not a self-righteous "I haven't seen her in ten years because she hurt me so badly." It's "I haven't seen her in ten years because she doesn't deserve it." Who am I ? After ten years of receiving letters and gifts that were always directed at the child that's all she knew, I sent her my graduation announcement, and a 5x7 senior portrait. I know my grandfather has sent her pictures of me over the years, but this, although impersonal, I sent. And she probably cried, and exclaimed about how grown-up I looked, and remarked that I take after my dad so much, and touched her fingers to my handwriting. She wrote back, thanking me and telling me how she put the picture on her wall. What does she tell people who see it? That this is the daughter she hasn't seen in ten years, who has refused to have any contact with her beyond that solitary photo? When I sent it, I felt like I was being such a big person. I'm not a hurt little girl anymore. God has worked quite a miracle in me, even trading the heart that I'd conditioned unto steel for one of tenderness and appreciation. He wasn't kidding when he said he gives beauty for ashes . . . all I had to offer was ashes of a broken little person. And now . . . people always tell me how wise and how beautiful I am. I see now that she really benefited me indirectly, because I had a lot of ashes to give to God. She's the hurt one. Mentally insane, yes, but hurting. Maybe she does write me about how meager her lifestyle is as a passive-agressive request for money, but she's still hurting. I know I've made a decision a thousand times before to write to her. It would mean a lot to her, and would it really require that much of me? In ten more years, do I want to be a 28-year-old remarking that I've bitterly ignored her for 20 years? Maybe ten years means it's time.
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