been married about six years when a young mother offered them her baby for adoption. That was 1960, and he is my big brother, Paul. I know more about Paul’s background than he does, (because when Mum began to go potty with Alzheimer’s she’d just say things that she should’ve kept to herself; she even introduced my sister to Paul’s uncle one afternoon). It’s awkward because it’s really none of my business, and Paul doesn’t want to know, (and realising what I’ve discovered in my story of adoption and reunion he might decide to just let sleeping dogs lie).
I was adopted three years after Paul; I guess Mum and Dad wanted another kid to keep Paul company.
Being adopted is no big deal if you’re adopted in infancy as I was. It’s normal. It’s the only world I know.
Our neighbours had three kids: twin boys, and a girl.
I reckoned that Mum decided to adopt another boy because she liked the idea of having twins. The twins next-door were great buddies who played rough and tumble together, and looked so cute dressed identically. But it didn’t work so well for Paul and me. The three-year age gap didn’t really help with the twin look; it never achieved the same effect. We were more like Kennedy and Khrushchev than Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Sure, we wore the same clothes, but Paul was tall and skinny with dark eyes and straight dark hair; and I was short and fat with blue eyes and mad curly-whirly platinum-blonde hair. And we were never great buddies: rough and tumble meant beating me into submission or screwing Chinese burns on my neck; and playing football was just an excuse to kick a big wet leather ball at my face. It’s fair to say that we hated each other. And this was normal too.
People adopt children for lots of reasons.
I think the most common reason is because it’s a natural human instinct to be a parent.
A certain relation (who shall remain nameless for the sake of family harmony) callously remarked that Mum and Dad adopted us because we were “the essential accessories for a respectable middle-class family.” Accessories? Like a big car? What a nasty thing to say about my mum and dad.
Okay, so being adopted is the only life I know; but having adopted kids was the only way Mum and Dad ever knew, and they loved us wholeheartedly and unconditionally. And looking around and listening to my friends talk about their childhood, I’d say that I was given a heap more love and affection than most natural offspring.
If Mum and Dad wanted to adopt children, they’d have done the normal thing and applied to an adoption agency; but they never did that, because we three were offered to them.
Furthermore, I was given two forenames that meant a lot to Mum and Dad. My first name is Thomas, and this is Dad’s father’s name (it’s one of those family names that alternates with each generation, William, Thomas, William, Thomas, and has done for at least 250 years); and my second name, Brian, is the name of Mum’s favourite uncle. I’m a full family member; I was adopted wholeheartedly, for keeps.
Two years after I was adopted, Mum and Dad adopted my sister, and she is also my full birth-sister, (and she’s the reason why I found out about my birth-family).
Paul has always been forward-looking and ambitious. He faces forward on the train: he sees where he’s going, not where he’s been. He’s never been interested in his birth-family or the circumstances of his adoption. I think he’s got a really healthy attitude towards his adoption: just forget about it; it’s history. He’s moved on, emigrated with his career, and never looked back. He’s now a naturalised Bermudian. And just as we once hated each other in equal measure, we also love each other, as true brothers should, (and I’m not just saying that to get another cheap holiday in Bermuda), (or am I?).
Being female, my sister naturally sees things differently. When Hilary’s body began to change with all the baby-making abilities and hormonal things that go on in a maturing young woman, she began to get really confused about how a mother could give away a helpless little baby that is created and grown in her belly for nine months. I just thought Hilary was getting a bit over-emotional about the whole thing, (you know the way girls are sometimes), but maybe it’s the girls who have it sorted? Boys (especially the stoic Ulster-Scots variety, it seems) are quite good at detaching themselves from emotions like that.
When I unexpectedly saw my birth-mother’s obituary, it was one of those gob-smacking moments of stunned surprise where you need to remind yourself to keep breathing, like scratching off the final winning number on a lottery card, (that’ll be the day).
I really wasn’t searching for online content about my birth-mother. I’d just been searching for the contact details of a couple of relatively well-known businesspeople, and I couldn’t find any mention of them, anywhere. The last thing I expected was a top-of-the-page result for a 78 year-old woman, living (or recently deceased) on the Isle of Man. It was just one of those end-of-afternoon things bored people do.
I stared at my screen in total disbelief, reading it over and over word by word. Dumbstruck….
My first reaction was to tell Hilary. I reached for my mobile phone to send her a text message, but you can’t text a thing like that? So I phoned her mobile number instead.
I should’ve known not to call her mobile number after the last time I had bad news to deliver. When our uncle unexpectedly died, my first reaction was to call his sister’s mobile phone. She was stuck in downtown traffic in the rain; it wasn’t the time or place, and I felt like a complete rat, realising that my aunt was extremely distressed and couldn’t break from what she was doing, trapped and in distress. (I’m still very sorry about that.)
I imagine the ideal setting for telling a loved-one that someone special has died might be an isolated park bench overlooking a calm ocean sunset, tissues in one hand and glass of port in the other. But when I phoned Hilary she was at the check-out at Lidl’s. I could hear the shop assistant beeping barcodes in the background. I’d misjudged the moment, again. I said that I’d something important to tell her, but now wasn’t a good time; however I was on the edge of my seat and just absolutely bursting to tell her, so it didn’t take much curious persuasion for me to fumble out the earth-shattering news that the woman who had given us life had died.
Lidl’s hasn’t been the same for Hilary since then. She now associates bargain packs of Greek dog food with bad news (and so does her dog). But like many things in life, is there ever a right way? (Actually, there is; and mobile phone is the wrong way.)
Hilary and I agreed to send our condolences incognito to our birth-mother’s family; and in our card I asked if I could write to the family again later in the year, and asked what address I should use.
I remember when Dad died, Mum received hundreds of letters and cards from people. This grieving family could’ve been equally inundated with sympathy mail, and my card, from an Irish unknown, could have justifiably been set aside and never even read. And that would’ve been the end of that. But I did get a reply. And my future correspondence was welcomed.
Was 2nd August a good time to send my letter to this other family?
It had been five months since I’d seen that online obituary and mailed our condolences incognito. And I was going to wait another month to round it off to a respectable six (so I didn’t appear to be carpetbagging), but 2nd August is a special day. It’s Mum’s birthday. I said to Hilary that sending the letter on Mum’s birthday makes her a small part of it all (that, and the fact that any excuse would do to send my letter sooner than later, because we were both struggling with impatience).
Being adopted is knowing that you belong to two families:
•You’ve got loyal and emotional ties to one family;
•And undeniable blood-ties to another.
In a way, getting in touch with my other family could be seen as turning my back on my adopted family. And I can understand that. I can see how it might look to the extended Bailie family. But I’ve never thought of myself as anything other than a Bailie. Sure, I’ve experienced a couple of awkward moments when a family friend or relation