How Do You Forgive Your Mother For Giving You Up As A Child, 39
Years Ago?
I wanted to forgive my mother for giving me up after 39 years,
but I wanted to know how to do that. It was the late 80's early
90's; I was not working at the time so I had a lot of free time.
I spent most of my time regrouping from past disappointments
with jobs that had not worked out, and just became a couch
potato, watching television. Everyone has a way of dealing with
disappointments, some eat themselves into submission, others
drink, drug etc. I chose at the time to just fall into the
fantasy of television again, so I did not have to physically
feel my reality. Now I know at this point you're asking yourself
a couple of questions, such as, what was my reality? And what
was my fantasy about television? it was this, I believed
everyone had a perfect family, you see while I was growing up I
watched a lot of television, like " Leave To Beaver, and similar
family shows so I began to believe that was what real families
were like. I envied anyone who had a mother, father, sister, and
brothers. The perfect family, know one ever argued, your mother
always came down to prepare breakfast with high heels, and that
perfect brand new outfit. Wow, what a life with a family. I was
now 39 years old, a loner, no friends, or family and still
believed in the illusion of that perfect family. I had been
fired from a job and in the dumps emotionally, and never really
allowed people to get too close to me, for fear of them knowing
about my past. I was too ashamed. The fantasy began to unravel
when I began watching "The Ricky Lake Show", and "The Jerry
Springer Show", in the late 80's early 90's. I began watching
these show religiously, everyday for about six months. I was
intrigued that people actually came from dysfunctional families
and that all families were not like "Ossie and Harriet". And,
there were people who did not even know their biological
families like me. When I started seeing the reunions of people
like me who did not know their family members, and were able to
forgive them, it blew me away. I started listening to both sides
of the stories, the parents who gave up their children, the
children's response to their parent's reasons for giving them
up. I began to put myself in the shoes of the parents and ask
myself if I had any right to judge the parent reasons of giving
up their children, I put away all the childish anger and
resentments that I had built up over the years aside, and
realized as a adult that we all have our own situations that we
want to be forgiven for. There were things that I had done to
others that I wanted to be forgiven for; it was time to work on
forgiving my family, if the opportunity presented itself. Come
back soon to read about my reunion opportunity with my mother on
the " Oprah Winfrey Show."
Orphaned Children Now Adults ocnasupports@aol.com