The Egg Donor at the Frame Shop

I know I owe part 2 of a post about my trip to Greensboro a few weeks back, but it’ll have to wait. I need to tell you this.

I was having something framed at a small custom frame shop. Normally I use coupons at Joann Fabrics, but let’s face it, they do really crappy work. Plus, since meeting Noni, I can’t in good conscience get framing done at place like that anymore. (Noni owns Penland Custom Frames in Greensboro.)

Anyway. Somehow my story–this story of my adoption and search and reunion–came up at the frame shop today. The framer said “I donated eggs six times to pay my way through college. Seven surgeries. I’ve never thought about what would happen if one of them came knocking at my front door. I guess I wouldn’t mind.”

This is a woman with tattoos down to her wrists, someone you’d probably see at the Ottobar here in Baltimore, or maybe singing onstage with the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.

She asked me what the laws are like in Maryland, if they can come knocking at her front door one day. I haven’t a clue about sperm and egg donation laws in Maryland, I told her. But adoptees have a (very stilted, very infantilizing) way to pursue (but not guarantee) access to their records, their original identity.

I told her I very much doubt the laws here in Maryland have much to say about biological children contacting her.

“Good! I asked it not to be anonymous or confidential. Who would do that?”

Who, indeed. I told her. “Forty-three states do that to adoptees. Including Virginia. Thank you for not wanting to be anonymous.”

Then we talked about taxes and the rain.

Every Birth Order There Is

I just realized I have four different birth orders.

In my adoptive family, I’m the youngest. I grew up as the baby. My older brother got to (had to) blaze all the trails, and I reaped the benefit (or disadvantage) of his having gotten in trouble for everything before I did.

Then Dad married Ruby Jane when I was in my twenties, and I acquired two step brothers. One is older than I am, and one is younger. So I’m in the middle of four there.

In Susan’s family, I’ll never be viewed by my new half siblings as the oldest, because I wasn’t around. But I’m older than all of them. Closer in age to Susan. Experienced at least a decade of history before any of them did. I have the wrinkles to prove it. I was born three days after the moon landing in 1969. Their teenage years were in the 90s. Mine were in the 80s. I have the prom pictures, a sad chapter in my hair history, to prove it.

In Dodie’s family, I’m an only child. Daughter of the long gone prodigal son. The only child on this branch of the family tree. The only grandchild of Kathleen, who was never a grandmother until I showed up. I get doted on like the 44 year-old toddler I’ve become. Only recently have I been allowed to even wash a dish I just used.

This seems fitting. I get to see it from all sides. Ron says I’m a birth order type that is every type, a fifth order. A type that contains or satisfies every type. Bertrand Russell would be proud/have a fit.

Getting Over the Hump

Dodie and his friend built a geodesic dome in the 70s

I’ve just come off a long weekend spent in Greensboro with the Penlands, Dodie’s family. Friday night featured a family-only low-key dinner of takeout Italian on Noni’s lovely porch, which is strung with multicolored party lights and features a coffee table made from a tree stump engraved with a quote from Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. Mina had immediately confessed upon fetching me from the train station that she’d taken the day off from work to make a homemade lasagna in honor of my visit, but a cooking disaster in the form of an upside pan of lasagna on the floor had foiled her plan.

Mina isn’t usually the cook her in family (that would be Craig), and she’d diligently chopped vegetables for a couple of hours, thinking she was going to present her new niece with a bit of homemade culinary love. But something happened when she was pulling the cooked lasagna out of the oven. A bump against the oven rack, or a momentary slip of the oven mitt, and the entire evening meal she’d invested her whole day in was face down on the floor.

But then Mina explained Craig, who normally does all the cooking, tasted the lasagna (to see if it was worth performing heroic measures on) and pronounced it awful. So we were always meant to have a big salad and some takeout lasagna, it seems. In any case, I’d arrived armed with salted chocolate chip cookies from a Baltimore bakery, and Susan had Fed Exed some excellent ice cream sandwiches from Nye’s in South Carolina. So we certainly weren’t lacking for calories.

Or good company. After dinner there was the requisite singing of the Penlands. Finding out this family are all musicians and singers is at once glorious and intimidating. I’ve spent hours and years singing my heart out on Vesper Hill at Camp Mont Shenandoah, in chorus and plays at the Collegiate School, and even with my husband sitting around our dinner table. But the Penlands really SING. They can’t wait to get done with dessert so everyone can harmonize. I’m rather embarrassed at my relative lack of not only talent but practice. While I’ve been watching the Good Wife after dinner, they’ve been sitting around under Noni’s party lights singing hymns, folk songs, and Broadway tunes.

When I sensed an opening, I asked if anyone knew One Tin Soldier, which has always been a favorite of mine from singing it around the campfire. You’d think at a table full of baby boomer former hippies that one person would know the words, but only I, the Gen Xer, knew the words. And I was too shy to sing by myself a cappella. So I sang along with the songs I knew, marveling at the way Craig would harmonize perfectly with Noni, Kathleen would sing out proudly, and Mina, in between her deep vibratos, would ask “Who’s singing lead?” It’s intimidating, I tell you.

I mentioned that the adoption agency had told me Dodie played several musical instruments. I already knew from previous visits with the Penlands, and from Susan, that Dodie was a talented and sought after singer. He’d been invited to appear in musicals at UNC-G even when he wasn’t a student.

Slightly tipsy Penland group selfie

So when I said “Oh yeah, the agency told me Dodie played all these musical instruments,” Kathleen chimed in proudly with “And he had PERFECT PITCH!” Now, I’m not musically inclined enough to know better, but Mina (and later, Ron, when we talked about it) countered that perfect pitch is an ideal that almost no one really, actually has. “Oh Momma, he had very good pitch. But almost nobody has PERFECT pitch.” I think it was pretty quickly deemed inadvisable to argue with a mother about her long-deceased son’s musical ability. I know I had nothing to say. Just an observer, taking it all in, learning the family.

Just like has happened with Susan’s family, I think this visit with Noni, Mina, Craig, and Kathleen (aka Gramma) was the hump of the reunion. The hump, like Wednesday. I think this visit was the last of the crazy, death-defying, good stress of a good reunion. And the start of some boring normalcy.

But first I had to get through my coming out party. Yes, that’s how they said it. There would be a party Saturday night, and I was being shown off to the inner circle of Penland friends.

Now, I refused to be a debutante when it was offered to me as an option during my teen years. (“Offered” as an “option” is probably a euphemism if truth be told. There may have been crying in my refusal.) I couldn’t face the anachronism and objectification of putting on a white dress, like a pretend bride, and long white gloves to be formally announced to society as marriage material. Or something. I mean, I know the point of what making your debut used to be, but by the mid 1980s in Richmond, Virginia, it seemed like a hopelessly backward and desperate reach for something a little bit awful. And then, of course, “coming out” came to mean something completely different by the 1980s anyway. If by the 90s you had a coming out party, it was understood you were gay and you’d either found people who didn’t care, or you didn’t care that they did care.

But I was to have a coming out party where I’d meet people who had known this family since right around the time I was born. This is not a family that does anything halfway. Their friends are practically family and always have been. In fact, the Penlands refer to so many people as “family” that at first it was really hard to keep track of the family tree. Men in their 60s call Kathleen “Mama Kat.” So many of their friends grieved right along with them when Dodie died. Imagine how they felt, though, to find an actual NEW blood family member! Some of the friends had heard rumors of my existence over the years. Others had no idea. I suspect at least a couple really did know I existed.

Later I’ll post the second part of my recounting the visit: “Terrys and Jimmys and the New New Normal.”

Open Mouthed

…or, “Genetics: It’s a Thing Now, Part 2.”

November 2009

Dodie in the 1970s

My Friend Stacy

As I was writing a new entry about visiting Dodie’s family in Greensboro, I got word that a longtime summer camp friend, younger than I am, has entered hospice after a year of living with a terrible illness. Stacy has a two year-old daughter and a strong marriage to a wonderful man. A man who has just sent word to friends old and new that Stacy is dying.

One of the reasons I searched for my original family is my realization of my mortality. And theirs. It never has and still doesn’t loom, exactly, but I recognize it now. I realized when I was in an unsustainable marriage that I would die someday, and that I didn’t want to die with the regret of NOT having lived an honest, open life in pursuit of my own path.

And that one decision, to end my marriage to a good man who was nevertheless not the right man for me, revealed to me my own strength. That I could make a cascade of good decisions to live my life with intention, to make choices with intent. And that cascade of intentionality led me to become the person I wanted to be in a successful relationship, to find Ron, and then a few years later, to finally solve the puzzle of my identity. After all this intention, it seemed not even open to question whether I would lead with vulnerability the way that I’ve done throughout this reunion process. And it has rewarded me so richly.

Now my beautiful friend Stacy is dying. She has lived with such hope this past year. Now she is being taken from so many who love her, most unfairly her toddler daughter and husband, as well as her sister and parents. I can’t possess any semblance of knowing their pain. What I can recognize in Stacy, though, is her living her life with intention.

The sandpainting logo of Camp Mont Shenandoah shows the 12 laws of woodcraft.

Stacy contacted me via Facebook message several years ago, not long after Ron and I realized we had a future together. I guess it was obvious, because Stacy reached out to ask how I knew he was the one. Her motive was that she had recently started seeing a man named Ethan, and she wondered if her feelings—so different from her feelings in a previous relationship that clearly wasn’t good for her—could be trusted. In short, Stacy wondered if the gift of loving Ethan was too good to be true.

I honestly don’t remember how I counseled her, and I don’t pretend that I conferred anything profound or meaningful. What I do know is that later that year she became pregnant with her daughter Gigi. After Gigi was born, Stacy and Ethan married. And then last year Stacy was diagnosed and started the terrible journey she is now about to end.

Stacy has lived so much life in just a few short years. And she obviously figured it out without my help. Stacy lived the last few years with great intention: She wanted to be with a good man, and she was. She wanted to get pregnant and have a child, and she did. And how, Stacy recognizes her body is failing, and she is saying goodbye. She never did a single thing halfway.

Neither do I. Goodbye, friend. Be brave. Be silent. Obey. Be clean. Be strong. Protect wildlife always. Speak true. Be reverent. Play fair as you strive. Be kind. Be helpful. Be glad you are alive.

Genetics: It’s a Thing Now

Right after I posted the rundown of the wedding, Ron said “I need to see pictures of you and Toes together.” Hey, me too. I need to see that.

(In case you’re wondering, if you don’t find find your genetic relatives until the age of 43, that means you didn’t look like anyone walking the earth for 43 years. I know I go on about it quite a bit, but honestly I’m grateful that at this age I can still have a sense of wonder about something: I LOOK LIKE OTHER PEOPLE NOW!)

Below is a photo of Toes (aka Nancy, my great aunt, who I never met), and a photo of me in a costume for a show. What do you think?

Toes and JP at the races

In costume for a show in 2009

Cousins & Doppelgangers

So Ron and I decided not to go snorkeling in the Keys after all. We couldn’t find a tour that would have us on the water for less than 2-3 hours, which is about 6 times as long as either of us should be in the sun. And here’s why:

On the day we would have gone snorkeling in Key Largo, we decided to spend many lazy hours reading, looking at the water (and the iguanas, as it turns out), and swimming in the hotel’s pool under the coconut palm trees. But first Ron needed a phone charger since he’d left his at home. And I needed more sunscreen. Google Maps said there was a shopping center with a CVS and a Winn Dixie right near our hotel. We started walking. It turned out to be over a mile away. We walked there and back between 9:00 and 10:00am. And we both turned up with a big enough sunburn that we stayed covered up and out of the sun entirely for the rest of the week.

Ron and me at the Island Grill, Islamorada, a few days before the wedding

Two days later, we arrived in Key West with Tessa and Justin’s wedding preparations well under way. Weston and Hannah and Tyler and his girlfriend all arrived the same day we did. The next few days were spent bonding over manis and pedis with a group of women including the bride and her friends and family, listening to beautiful toasts to the bride and groom on the rooftop deck of our house during the rehearsal dinner, and getting ready for and attending the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been a part of.

A couple of hours before the ceremony, Ron, Hannah, and I were left in charge of Bege: Help her get dressed and make sure she gets to the right place at the right time. Everyone else was already at the venue, having reported earlier for photos. As I helped Bege slip into her Lily Pulitzer pantsuit, I was struck again by the thought of this generous soul who had nothing to gain by letting me into her life at this late date, yet she seemed to take it all in stride. She’d been warming up to me, and now we were really getting intimate, with my helping to pull her top over her hair without messing it up.

After I finished helping Bege, I dressed myself. Both Ron and I happen to favor sort of a retro style when we get fancy. He’d bought a seersucker suit, and I had kind of a 60s thing happening with a turquoise dress and coral beads and gold heels. Bege had never seen me with lipstick on, I think, until the moment we were about to get into the car to go to the wedding venue. As I came out of the sliding glass door, she looked me up and down and with more emphasis than anything she’s ever said to me, she blurted out “I see it now. You look just like Nancy.” Nancy, also known as Toes, was Bege’s sister who passed away less than a year before I came on the scene. Several people had told me I look very much like she did at my age, and I can see it in certain photos. I think the image of me in a sort of 60s flashback outfit, complete with the same red hair Toes had, swung Bege from hesitance to a believer: I was a part of the fold, even if she didn’t really know me yet. “You look like a million bucks,” she said.

Before the ceremony, there were family photographs at the venue–the Westin hotel. Oh crap, I realized: I never thought of this. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I don’t know what photos I’m supposed to be in! The photographer had obviously been briefed ahead of time on who was who and who should be in what photos, and it was all handled so artfully. Tessa and Susan obviously planned meticulously, just as they did for the rest of the day. I joined in several photos of the bride and her siblings, and then I exited for a couple of photos of Tessa with just Weston and Tyler. Very smoothly done. If you’re ever wondering how to take family wedding photos when a long-lost person shows up, take lessons from this family: Some with, and some without.

In Key West, when the sun sets, people gather to watch, and then they clap once the last sliver had dropped below the water line on the horizon.

When Ron and I walked into the ceremony seating area, I realized everyone else except the wedding party was already seated and that only the front row–the family seats–were open. Oh, right. That is where we sit. In the few minutes remaining before the ceremony started, I chatted with the people seated nearby. All cousins. Susan is an only child and has no siblings, and she’s very close to her first cousins and their children. So now I have a metric crapton of cousins!

My cousin Mary Simpson and me at the reception

Ron and I took our seats in the front row, and then my grandmother, Bege, was escorted in with Susan. Susan sat, and as we all turned to watch Tessa walk down the aisle, escorted by her brothers (and now mine) Weston and Tyler, Bege jumped up, walked to the railing overlooking the water, saying “I’d like to look overboard.” I’d been in a trance, because duh, this whole year has been amazing and weird, so I tuned in right when I realized Bege had said “OVERBOARD” and was heading for the water. I jumped up to chaperone her and to coax her back to her seat so the bride could come in and, you know, she and Justin could get married.

And get married they did! The ceremony was beautiful and brief but meaningful. The sun set minutes afterward, creating that otherworldly light photographers call “the golden hour.” We ate, and danced, and I got to know my new cousins more. My Camp Mont Shenandoah friends–who everyone knows are the world’s sweatiest, most energetic dancers–would have been put to shame by the moves of Weston and especially his wife, Hannah. Weston retained all his cotillion dancing chops, and Hannah did multiple splits on the dance floor. Feeling the need to up my game, I stole Jessica Henkin’s charming “LOOK AT ME IMMA HORSEY!” hipster gallup, leading the dance floor in a horse-train move combo that I hope no one has recorded on video.

After a few hours of sweaty sweaty partying, with paper lanterns strung overheard lighting us just enough to see our way to the bar and back, the Caribbean Queen Junkanoo Band–hired as a surprise gift by Susan for Tessa and Justin–appeared to march the entire party a few blocks away to continue the partying on Duval Street. We hummed in our kazoos while the processional percussion band drummed and the entire wedding party spun like happy fools down the walkways and streets of Key West.

I’m thrilled to have a sister and that I got to witness her wedding to a wonderful man. I’m also thrilled to have been in attendance at the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to (after my own to Ron, of course).