Margodar’s Weblog

In 1975, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. My father told us that she couldn’t possibly live more than six months. The possibility that we would lose her was just simply out of the question. But it soon became apparent that this was going to happen no matter what we said or felt. She fought very hard, but she lost her battle a week before my 17th birthday

There wasn’t even standing room at my mother’s funeral. Everyone loved my mother. I was truly blessed by having this woman in my life. I will remember that each and every day of my life.

Here I was away at college. My father fell into a deep depression over the loss of my mother. My sister was only 13 and was left to pretty much fend for herself. She fell to the way of rebellion and misconduct and my father couldn’t take it. He was helpless and she was helpless. There was only one thing to do. I came home. Not that I could really help. I was only 17. Just a child myself. I was home for a few months, and I don’t know how much I actually helped but I thought to myself “I’m going to drown here. There is far too much sadness here and I won’t survive it”. I stayed long enough to see that my sister could get on track, and then I left.

Little by little we all got back to the business of life, as we all must. But with my mother now gone, I started to wonder about my birth mother. I didn’t even want to, but all these thoughts of her kept coming no matter what. I wanted to feel motherly love again. I kept thinking about her and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to betray my mother that raised me, but she was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Each and every day that went by I wondered more and more about her. Finally, I decided to ask my father about her. He told me that he didn’t know anything about her. He only knew that she was young and couldn’t take care of me, hence my adoption. That was it.

Eventually, I came to accept this. That was it. There was nothing else I could do. I had looked into opening my adoption records and I was told flat out “They are sealed and there is nothing you can do to ever open them.” New York State has about the strictest laws on adoption that there are. They are iron-clad. And that was way back when in the late 70s or early 80s.

In the early 80s, the computer age came into being for the average person. I didn’t have a computer, but I knew a few that did. My first search on the computer was into adoption. There were a few sites that were dedicated to finding a birth parent or an adoptee. I delved into those, but that came up with nothing. I once again made contact with the state. Now, there was a registry that you could sign on to, but it could only help you if your parent was trying to make contact with you as well. Down hearted, I signed up anyway. It was a long shot, but I had to try. Unfortunately, she wasn’t looking for me.