Sorry

My mom and I made an agreement this past September. We won’t use the phrase, “I’m sorry,” when we are talking about my adoption/relinquishment. We have both endured life-long consequences of the event that neither of us had a voice in. By using “I’m sorry” in our conversation, it places blame or ownership on one party or another. That won’t do either of us any good, and it only continues a dialogue that has been steeped in trauma and pain for long enough. In order for the two of us to continue to have a healthy and healing relationship, there cannot being any insinuating verbiage that points to blame. Instead we try to focus on what we are each feeling, or how we wish that our circumstances could have been different, and how we work with that moving forward.

By the two of us making the decision to choose our words more deliberately, it has also shifted how I see and use that phrase elsewhere in my life. Don’t get me wrong. There are times when it is appropriate and absolutely necessary to say, “I’m sorry,” to another person. If I am in a situation where I have done something that has resulted in pain or difficulty for someone else, I have a responsibility to apologize and say, “I’m sorry.” I have a moral obligation to recognize and own my role in another person’s hurt. To that end, I have been reflecting on some conversations I’ve had with my adult kids. I’m wondering if shifting the verbiage with them might be a little freeing for all of us.

There has been a long-running dialogue in our family about how our youngest son is being raised versus the way they were raised. The youngest boy falls last in line with a gap of eight years between he and the next oldest sibling, and there is a span of twenty years between the youngest and the oldest child. In total, there are five of them. It is often said by the older kids in light-hearted jest to the youngest that, “Dude, you have it so easy!” or, “I wish I was raised by this mom.” The truth of the matter is, big kids, I wish things could have been different, too. I wish that I could have been jostled out of the fog of adoption by my first pregnancy instead of my last. I wish I could have known that my deeply hidden and unknown trauma affected my ability to be a fully present parent. If I had known then what I know now, I would have recognized and appreciated the mirrored glances we exchanged with each other when you were infants. I would have been more patient with your sometimes endless need to be held if I knew that the reason it frustrated me was because I’d never internalized being held as a place of comfort and security. If I’d been able to gain a sense of self-worth and self-confidence sooner, I wouldn’t have allowed the toxic influence of my adoptive parents be a part of our collective lives for as long as I did. I wish I’d been able to be more playful and sillier with you. I wish I’d appreciated your little arms wrapped around me in the same way that I do when your little brother does it now. I know I have told you, “I’m sorry you didn’t have the same mom your youngest brother does,” and I wish there was some magical way I could change that. What I need you to hear is that my heart aches when I think about the opportunities I missed during your childhood. Thank you for still willingly hanging around and letting me better appreciate you now, all of who each of you are, and for understanding that I gave you the best version of me that was available. You are beautiful, gracious people, and I love you.