There are probably a million different reasons why people come to the decision to give up a child for adoption, but very few of those reasons must make for easy decisions.
Somebody’s Child could have been a much longer book – or even a series of books – for just that reason. Instead, we have 25 stories from all perspectives of this complex and emotional aspect of so many modern families’ lives.
Editors Bruce Gillespie and Lynne van Luven state that it’s really a quest for origin because human beings universally seek to understand their true identities in order to fully understand themselves and their places in the world. It makes sense: wouldn’t we all wonder who our parents were if we didn’t already know them personally?
It’s with that perspective that one must begin reading these stories, whether they are told from the point of view of the child (now grown) who was given up for adoption, the parents who gave up that child, the ones who adopted it, even the siblings or other relatives and friends involved with any of the above.
Take Dale Lee Kwong for example. She wrote that she was seven years old when her father was about to remarry, this being a year after her mother died. The dad said that there would be other names on the paperwork so that his new wife could adopt her and her sister. Those other names were her real parents’ names.
She struggled through her teen years with suicidal thoughts, struggles with low self-esteem and other issues including identity. At one point in her early twenties, her birth family reached out to her but, because of the stigma, guilt and the cultural and social denial of being adopted, she refused the request although she secretly wanted to accept it.
She went into counselling not more than a year after that. Her psychologist suggested that she apply to Alberta Social Services for her Non-Identifying Information document. This statement would at least give her a better idea of who her real parents were, but all it ended up doing was provoking more questions. Her mother was 37 and had black hair. Those are the most incidental of details. Kwong needed to know why? She needed to know who? What were the circumstances?
Later on in her life, she made contact with her half-brother who put her in touch with her birth mother. She learned about the traumatic circumstances of her conception and being given up for adoption.
Kwong stated that she went into a catatonic mental state, only surviving through more counselling and a strong resolve to continue learning more about herself. The day she actually met her mother, she said it was anticlimactic. It was awkward but they talked.
In the end, she says that her story isn’t tragic because good has come out of it. She found answers. She doesn’t have a question mark over her life any more.
She writes, “This story is proof that how you came into the world does not set the course for your life.”
In a later interview, she elaborated.
“My story is very complex. Coming to terms with abandonment and overcoming the shame of being conceived through a rape do not define me, but I am proud that I triumph over these struggles.”
Review
Somebody's Child<br />Edited by Bruce Gillespie and Lynne van Luven<br />Touchwood Editions<br />249 pages<br />$19.95
