Adoption

I was adopted, thats not a secret. its never been a secret.

All this time, all these years of mystery,not knowing, fear, has ended.

It has all culminated in this moment, this week, this very minute.

To discover who you are after years of imagination is a strange feeling indeed.

The imagination of a child is something that's lost as your years of cynicism

take over. Not something you can help but something that happens regardless.

Of course I had a theory of what had happened and some things that were pieced together

throughout the year but nothing was ever set in stone.

As an 8 year old I would shopping with my mother In Sauchiehall street and imagine

the bio one lurching past me, a stranger but connected.

It was a weird feeling. I would come home from school and see a strange car outside my

parents house, that would be it.

She had come to get me and terror struck.

I wouldnt have known the blood if it had smacked me in the face.

Scott never wanted to know of course.

His memories blurred his vision and he could never forgive.

He wasn't a curious nosey one like I was.

He could leave things alone.

I couldn't which is why im writing this now.

im a black sheep, never really placing myself

anywhere and the feeling multiplied by a million when I lost Scott.

He was my link to the past, my tie and now nothing.

The feeling of helplessness was palpable.

I had the immediate feeling of dealing with his loss by myself, no one got it. Everyone had

lost him in a way but to me, he was the protector of my life, the only one in the world i have

known my whole life and that was gone.

I was gone!!

Years ago i used my imagination before it left me and wrote the short story ive published

earlier on, it contained words which now seem to be accurate.

Maybe i know more than i thought i did.

I had images in my head of going to meet the Bio with my newborn son, she was reach out to hold

him and i would claw him away from her, certain he'd meet the fate I did. Her lies danced on painted lips,

her ears heard stories as though they were true, she lives in a fantasy.

A mothers job is to protect, she failed in that and so my brother took on that role.

To say that he can't fulfil that now breaks my heart.

But who's the job left to now, myself really.

Ive put up walls where she's concerned and, speaking to her these days, with her pitiful stories

i find it hard to muster up any sympathy for her. She's full of blame towards other people

without bestowing any on herself.

LAst year after Long Lost families, I searched my birth name on the internet and found an advert by

Samantha which had been posted just 6 weeks before.

To see a birth name for me and Scott, with actual dates of births on it.

Shocked to see something relating so directly to me, was unnerving and I couldnt share it with him

Yet another thing to deal with on my own.

i made up a fake facebook page with a pseudonym, and tentaively contacted Samantha.

At first i felt anger towards every last one of them, but as time went on I realised, Samanatha,

Cheryl, RYan and Jacqueline are just like me, products of someone who, for one reason or another

should not be continually having children.

These people weren't even born when i left. THey had known and been told about Scott and I our whole

lives whereas the only one i ever had was him.

Ive gone from being the youngest, the baby, the protected, to being the oldest by far to a boy who's

younger than my own son.

EVentually after talking to Samamantha on and off for a long time, she was starting to annoy me.

I was looking for answers on what had happened to us, she was merely excited to have another sister.

I didnt want a sister. I wanted Scott back and thats all i wanted.

Anyway time went on and i went back and forth between wanting to meet them, wanting to forget and

feeling like i was betraying my adoptive parents.

They have always said i should do what i feel is right, and that they understand i should have a need

to know who i am.

I seem to spend my life worrying about hurting people, treading on eggshells and wondering what i should

do with regards to everything. This decision has weighed heavy on me but after years of speculation,

i need to know.

Of course I can never do things normally though. I can never do things through proper channels.

Drama is my middle name though i wish it wasnt sometimes.

Ive done a few prank calls to them, pretended to be a japanese window sales woman, a bulgarian marketing

man wanting to know about washing powder, the lot.

Eventually I had contacted little Ryan. He talks like my son, just rubbish basically and that endeared him

to me,

that and the fact he's a brother like Scott.

He's a brother but not enough like SCott where i would see him as any sort of replacement.

Nothing was supposed to happen, but yeah drama in Angela World, it always happens, I should have known

that.

I had been messaging Ryan just before, obviously he didnt know we were just outside. This is not how i always

imagined things going.

We sat at the end of the road, imagining the chaos inside what was obviously a horrible house.

It didnt look like it had changed much from the house i imagined we had been taken from.

So when the ice cream van came round, Jac said she wanted an ice pole.

We got out the car and started to walk over when suddenly we saw them coming out.

Ryan was with an older man who later turned out to be the Bio's boyfriend.

Jac asked what i wanted to do, so we went out and stood behind him in the queue, and i couldnt take my

eyes off my little brother.

The man kept staring at me, unnerving me but when they left Jac asked what to get at the van and i started

babbling rubbish about Wham Bars and Sherbert straws.

she's laughing and saying "you've never eaten that rubbish in your life."

The Bio came on Facebook and asked where we were. When i told her we were parked where the van was she was sceptical.

Next thing i saw her coming round the corner and i reversed as fast as the rubber could burn.

That annoyed me, I had told her I didnt want to meet her and she took it upon herself to force it.

It can't be forced. I might meet her and i might not but my terms matter and they are important.

Years of imagination ending up in that moment in a housing scheme is not how this should end.

After slight persuasuion, I convinced Ryan to meet me. He said he would come if the boyfriend could come too but i wasnt keen on that. This private moment should have stayed that way.

Nevertheless I couldnt let this go. I had seen him now, and felt overwhelmed by him. I watched him

walk towards the car, his eyes wide, like mine. He looked just like me.

That was a weird feeling. I have never had anyone look like me in my life.

Scott never did really although after he died, looking at photos i started to see similarities.

This 15 year old was my double, in boy form.

I ran over and gave him a hug immediately which he reciprocated.

There was no awkwardness. 

I hugged him for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 10 seconds.

He started babbling stuff like how i looked like his mother, his sister. and how i talked like them.

None of this i felt was true but i humoured him anyway.

I could have stood and talked to him all day, he jibed about my age, how old i was, and how chuffed he was.

his eyes were identical to mine.

After our talk i just wanted to talk to him but the Bio came round the corner again. This infuriated me. I just wanted to speak to him and she was interupting.

I apologised to him and said i needed to go.

Once again, we screeched round the corner.

I saw there with Jac crying, I hadnt wanted it to end that way where id have to rush away from him but i couldnt have made it any cleared that i didnt want to meet her.

After sitting there for a few minutes Ryan walked past again with the Bio's boyfriend.

Jac says its fate, timing is everything. We had no intention of meeting them, yet here we saw them twice.

we ended up getting to know him a bit better after going for a drive and taking him for a Mcdonald's.

I dont know whats going to happen next, i have spoken to him a few times since, and he's excited to know me after he says he has known about me his whole life.

After we met he told his sisters, 'you can tell she's our sister, she has big boobs and is really funny!'

Typical boy response, after all these years, thats all he says.

Bio was still pushing herself to meet me, asking me to DJ at one of their weddings etc. Sometimes i think she lives in a dreamworld.

Like sorry about all the hassle ive caused you in the past but can you DJ then come to the wedding without so much as an explanation about the past?

Naw pal.

The following night I spoke for the first time with Cheryl, 3 years younger than me and she was explaining about how she felt strange because she had always been the oldest and now she was the middle child.

Im trying to relate to her but I can't, ive never had a sister and to be honest im not sure i really want to start now.

She was cligingin on to shreds of evidence to create a bond between us, like telling me about the expandable baby bracelet i have which they all have as well.

Doesnt create a bond really, only the DNA strands do.

When we looked at their house and how well i had been brought up, Jac said "You were like Kim Kardashian before all the work and once you were adopted you were like her after the work!"

I dont want to create false hope about whats going to happen in the future, whether or not any of us will have any sort of relationship because if im honest, I dont see that happening.

I feel bitter and angry with the Bio, she let us be abused, she was the cause of the neglect.

She was the reason my 3 year old brother had to make my dinner as a baby.

She was the reason My older sister died in a fire at 2 years old.

I might be being harsh here by placing the blame solely with her but what else was her job if it wasnt to protect her children.

Since ive asked her about these instances, she has dragged in other people and put the blame on them,

'it was my sister in law Elizabeth who tried to get you put in care!'

'there was a guy who tried to strangle me, he pretended to be your father!'

Yadda Yadda Yadda! You get the gist.

It was never her fault, always someone else

When we were eventually taken off her and placed in to foster care, she tried to get us back and the case was the first time in Scottish history where they went against the birth mother.

That gives an idea of the circumstances.

Lucky for Scott and I we were saved from that life by our parents.

Yes he still died young, but from the sounds of what i know, he could have died a lot younger had we not been taken away.

I don't know whats going to happen next or what im going to do. ]

LAst night she was pleading with me about phoning her for a chat, telling me she didnt forgive herself etc.

I dont feel sorry for her at all, but im not a hard person.

Perhaps if Scott had still been alive and felt the anger he always felt towards her, then that would have taken away some of mine.

Its not the case though, I feel like i need to be angry with her on his behalf or i would just be betraying him.

Im trying to rememeber that these sisters and that brother of mine want to get to know me because they have holes in their lives too, the same as I do and none of that is any of our faults.