So Surreal

[Rhia]

I guess before I jump into the topic, I should give a bit of background.

 

Most people here know that I am adopted, but that I still talk to my birth family, and that includes my bio-father (or as I call him: "the sperm donor").

 

Well, he had a chance to have me while I was in foster care, but dropped the ball - decided he just didn't want a "ready-made" daughter. His mother, brother, sister, and their children knew of my existence for 5 years after the paternity test (and they really did know before as well - my mother wasn't exactly a slut - she told them she was pregnant) before negotiations were being made (which completely fell through - I really didn't like him anyway), I had received a picture of everyone, and a letter from an aunt, uncle, and grandmother I had never seen (this happened at 14) - I eagerly wrote back to each - as my birth mother had never allowed contact for me with my extended family (she was the black sheep). What I never expected after that was the deafening silence as each one undoubtedly received a letter, but never continued contact.

 

I was finally moved to an adoptive placement very shortly after (right before I turned 15), they had so much time before that to get to know me, to send cards, letters, SOMETHING to signify to me that they were aware of my existence - I was given NOTHING.

 

So yeah, let's flash forward 8 years to today, where the topic in hand comes into play.

 

I've been very infrequently talking to the donor, but I've always felt comfortable that for so many years before the adoption, that I had been treated as non-existent; but I'm not a horribly confrontational person in real life, so I never said anything - but I always felt it. I know I have all this other family out there, but I have no feelings for them. I couldn't even see physical resemblance when I looked my cousins up on myspace and found them.

 

Well, I got a call from the donor last night, he told me that my grandmother (damn that feels so weird to say... is she really a grandmother if she refused to accept my existence?) had died this past Saturday (5th January) of ALS. I was grateful that they allowed her to die with dignity and grace - at her home, surrounded by her three children, etc; but shouldn't I be feeling more?!

 

I mean I know very well that I share at least a quarter of this woman's DNA, but I feel NOTHING. I was almost wondering why he told me, but didn't want to see cold-hearted.

 

Should I be feeling more? Should I be mourning for her? Is it even proper for me to call her my grandmother?! I feel like I was tossed out like the baby with the bathwater even before I was born; but my boyfriend keeps insisting that it's "family", and that "family should mean something", but it doesn't in this case.

 

I don't know what to think, I don't know what to feel, and what's worse - I don't know if I should attend the ceremony in her honour in the spring. Supposedly there's going to be a huge party at her sister's in the spring, to celebrate her life - but do I really want to meet family who ignored me for 23 years at the funeral of a woman that I've never known, never met, feel nothing for, and much less can't shed a tear for?

 

I felt more sadness when my adoptive mother's father died, after only knowing him for 6 months - than I do for this dead woman who I theoretically should owe my life for - that I'm related to.

 

Is there something wrong with me? What's worse, is I feel horribly for my donor - not because he lost his mother (although that IS sad!), but because the man honestly believes when he dies that it's this woman that's going to come to him in spirit and lead his spirit away from his body (what he told me last night)! He knows I'm an atheist, but he thinks that my lack of belief is "too sterile".

 

I just don't know... what do I do?

[The-Captain]

I dont know, sometimes I worry that Im a little too cold about these kind of things. Ive been to alot of funerals for relatives I never knew because of broken families and felt nothing (at least nothing appropriate for a funeral). The only time I went to a funeral that really affected me was for a friend who, along with his younger brother, had been killed in a traffic accident. That hurt, that made me grieve for the loss of both of them (I counted both of them as close friends) and for the effect on the family who I also knew well. As much as I try to care for everyone and be sympathetic to the plights of strangers its by and large impossible. I can show kindness sympathy etc for people I dont know but real emotion and feeling is reserved for the people I really know, and have known for some time.

 

As for family, in my opinion blood ties are altogether worthless for deciding who you should love and care about, family to me are just the core relationships that I have. From all that my conclusion is that if you were to feel the same level of emotion , as you would for someone close, for a relative who was nonexistent to you then those emotions are likely false. You cant be expected to feel deeply for anyone and everyone for no reason, it just doesnt happen.

 

Or maybe Im just cold hearted...

[GraphicsGuy]

If you feel nothing, you feel nothing. You didn't know her. I wouldn't be surprised if you feel remorse that you never got to know her, but otherwise...don't beat yourself up over it.

 

My grandfather died back in...uh...March I think...see? I can't even remember. Anyway, I remember him fairly well from when I was little, but I hadn't seen nor talked to him in ten years (and that time had only be briefly at my wedding).

 

I felt bad when he died that I hadn't kept in contact or anything, but that was it. I didn't know him. I knew nothing about him.

 

I mean, from my posts and such I think it's pretty obvious I'm not an unemotional guy with a heart of stone. If I only felt a twinge of remorse for my grandfather...well, like I said...I don't think you need to worry about your feelings for your "grandmother" at all...

[Grandpa Harley]

Family is not blood. It's not who you should love, since, as many have seen here, blood relationship is conditional on some imaginary friend, or some 'honourable' arrival, or fill in the blank of any of the 10,000 reasons that blood so much polluted water.

 

You feel nothing. So? She was nothing to you, and she worked hard at it. TBH, 'nothing' is better than she deserves, but then she missed out knowing a lively, loving, bright young woman, who had every chance of making her proud and adding satisfaction ot her life, over the wounded pride of a raising a son who had no spine, less self control, and no sense of responsibility.

[godlessgrrl]

There's nothing wrong with you for feeling the way you do. This woman was a stranger to you. You don't know her at all, she didn't know you.

 

Just because you shared a quarter of her DNA doesn't mean you owe her or her blood relatives anything. People think that DNA and blood relations are what makes a family, but y'know what? That's bullshit. Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood. Family are the people who love and support you and are there for you when you need them. If they ignored you for over 20 years, they aren't family.

 

If there's anyone on that side of the family other than your biofather who's been trying to establish a relationship with you over time, then going to the memorial might be an option. But otherwise I'd say screw it.

[a skeptical believer]

Rhia,

As someone who also found out that a biological relative has passed away this week. - a mother I had no contact with since I was 11 months (her choice to leave 4 kids) except for meeting her for the first time when I was 30, I don't think you are cold hearted for feeling nothing. These are people who made a conscious choice to not be part of your life after you reached out to them so you have no connection - their loss, not yours. As I have learned, you make your family from those around you - your close friends, your boyfriend, etc...You have no reason to feel there is something wrong with you because feel nothing. And as far as your "donors" beliefs, let him believe what he wants if it allows him some comfort, but don't let him sway your beliefs. If you go to the party at her sister's in the spring, be prepared to explain how you are related to her. If the thought of it causes stress, don't bother going.

[ShackledNoMore]

I don't see anything odd about your reaction at all.

 

Unless the wrong guy got blamed as my sperm donor, I have two half-sisters who each share a quarter of my DNA. I never contacted them, and I am only aware that they exist because I got curious and I know how to use the Internet. Like you and your grandmother, it feels very odd to call them my "sisters."

 

If one of them were to die and I somehow were to find out, I'd be sad, to be sure, in the same sense that I'd be sad if a friend of a friend had died, but you don't bond with your family because you share DNA, but because you grew up with them as your family. I think the only thing you need to "do" is not to worry that there is anything wrong with you--sounds perfectly normal to me.

[Rhia]

Thanks to everyone. It's really relieving to know there are others who understand, and that I'm not a horrible person; which is what I was afraid of.

 

I actually don't regret not knowing her - she was described by my donor as "elegant, dignified, and classy", but considering that she ignored me, my impression is that she was snobby and arrogant.

 

I think I'm going to try to take this whole thing as one of those "last ties" that I have to these people. I would love nothing more than to go back in time and to have never contacted him - so maybe I can finally just be left alone.

[Piprus]

Dear, dear Rhiannon,

 

Your conflicts touch deeply, and I empathize with you.

As others have already put it, though, this person was not part of your life in any real sense. You are still your own self, free to define yourself and your life on your own terms. I know you from your posts on this site, and I know that you are strong in your own sense of yourself. So don't be daunted by this event. I'm certain that you will not. You have a beauty as a human being that is yours alone, and it is very real. Continue to go forth with your strength, my dear. You will not fail.

 

You don't have to ask if you should be "feeling more". We can only feel what we feel...there are no shoulds, coulds, or woulds, attached. The fact that you recognize what you are truly feeling is enough.

 

If I knew how to offer you a blessing in Celtic, I would.

 

May Peace and strength be yours.

[CelloChick]

Rhiannon,

 

I'm adopted, too. Although I was adopted as a baby, I did meet my bio-mom once or twice in my 20's. Should I hear news that she died, I would react as if a distant, distant, relative died. Because family is family, not just genetics. So, the fact you're not crushed, or feeling devastated makes sense to me, as a fellow adoptee.

 

It's a strange family dynamic that gets set up with adoption. There's the family I know, and love. Right now I'm grieving my "real mom" who died last year. My "real mom" is the woman who raised me, loved me, and hauled me and my cello all over the place. She rocked. Her death felt like someone took a garden hose and washed the colors out of the world. I'm only now starting to adjust to the blow and it's been nearly a year.

 

Apart from my real family is a biological family who share my genetics, but not my heart. I have aunts and uncles I've never met. Grandparents I've never talked to. Nieces and nephews that I don't know. So, I understand why you're not crushed at the loss of a grandparent you never met. I wouldn't be, either. Although, like you, I'd probably feel... confused.

 

Slán agus beannacht leat,

CelloChick

(Goodbye and blessings to you, in Irish. Speaking/reading Irish is a gift from my mom. I don't get to use Irish much, so that made me feel better. )

[mwc]

I know it's been said by others but I'll chime in as well. I also had a "sperm donor." He's now dead. Didn't miss him growing up. Didn't care when he died. And I don't care about him now. I guess if he had a fortune I'd try to get me some (even then I'm really not so sure) but they had first right of refusal...not you.

 

Don't tear yourself up over them. The only thing you might want from them is a medical history since that's the only thing that could be useful to you (and that hidden fortune they have stashed away...never totally rule that out).

 

mwc

[Rhia]

Thanks again,

 

I highly doubt they have "stores of wealth", though they are Scottish so maybe if their last name were McDuck.

 

I tried to find out medical history - that's always a fun one for me - my mother claims that she has every illness known to man with the exception of HIV, brain worms, and Ebola, and his side claims nothing, but the grandmother just died of ALS... so I'm not sure. Hard thing to do when ya don't know who to believe.

 

Hence, why I have decided since her death, that I'm going to save up and see about getting a genetic panel done on myself. It may not tell me illness, but it'll at least let me know if it's safe to procreate - that and it may hopefully lay to rest some ethnicity claims my mother makes - who swears on her life that my great-great-great grandmother was a Haitian voo-doo queen, who simply "married into the family" (highly unlikely, as the family should would have become part of were slave-owning plantation assholes... that and the woman in question owned 27 herself previous to the marriage).

 

Seriously though - I'll enclose a picture and you can laugh at the craziness that is my bio-mom!

 

The most-common comment I get is my striking resemblance to ghosts, vampires, and pasty-white demons, etc.

 

(Oh, and the kitty is one of my gingers - "Sir Charles Fenway II", or "Chuck" for short - my boyfriend is insane, and the one who named him.)

[white_raven23]

I'm 31 and I've yet to meet my bio-mom (I'm also adopted).

 

I've just never been interested. My bio-father is a total ? mark.... I'm still not interested.

 

I have awesome Real Parents. No one could replace them.

 

So if I learned my bio-mom died, I might feel a twinge of regret followed by a blissfully selfish relief that we'd never met.

 

Heck, my mom drives me nuts enough trying to get me to have more of a relationship with my extended family based on the logic that she and my dad won't be around forever.

 

Because I live in Alaska, my parents have been All Family for me. My extended family all live in the lower 48. I think I've seem most of them maybe 15 times or so in my whole life. I don't have strong emotional bonds with them. Expecting me to be stricken with grief at the loss of a relative I've never really known (you don't really get to "know" people on short visits) based on the idea that family is somehow a "magical" bond is totally unreasonable.

 

But that is the unspoken assumption of many people who disregard the role continual and frequent contact have with the true bonds people make. They'd rather call you "cold", "unfeeling", or "heartless" than admit that even family love is not unconditional.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Rhia,

 

Your feelings on Granny are about as normal as normal gets.

 

Stranger, someone you "knew", but shared nothing with, died. Not odd that there be little connection to heartstrings and memories.

 

I had the opportunity of both a Mom and Dad at home, Mom died when I was an older teen. Been a lotta years and there is a strange disconnect with what I try to remember, and the empty spot I seem to have.

 

Lived cross country from both sides of my folks' families, and never was close to any of them in particular. When the g-parents and g-uncles and aunts pass, it is like "Oh, sorry.."

 

I feel some of what you aren't feeling, and I'll tell you it isn't a *bad thing* to find yourself not emotionally blown away.

 

Live well and long.

 

kL

[OldApostate]

One of my first posts here many years ago in another incarnation was a rant about my father, who was back on one of his periodical half assed attempts to contact me and make me feel like crap because I didn't really care to meet him. He left my mother, my brother and me in poverty when I was three years old. His mother died a few years ago and my biggest thought about it was a resounding, heartfelt, "...So?"

 

I hope it's normal, because it was pretty much the only feeling I had about it.

 

I recently met my father again, by the way, and finally got to see how pathetic he is and tell him off a bit. It's done wonders for my abandonment issues.

[Eric_PK]

Family is not about DNA - family is about relationships. You had a relationship to your adoptive mother's father through her - not only had you met him, but you had sadness because you knew how your mother was feeling.

 

You barely have a relationship with your donor, and you have no relationship with his mother. And it sounds like you are very ambivalent about the relationship with your donor. It's not weird that you aren't feeling anything in this case.

 

I don't see how you have any debt or responsibility to attend.

[Grandpa Harley]

Sort of a sidebar:

 

Death is a funny thing...

 

I was thinking about my childhood, and realised that death was pretty much a conscious part of it from an early age. Before I was 12 my collection of doting elderly relatives was reduced to three - my nan, Great aunt Olive and Great Uncle Jim. By 19 there were really just the four us (mum, dad, bro and me) with my Dad's sister drooling in a home with an early onset dementia, and my mother's sister and her husband becoming more reclusive as mental illness rang down its curtain on my Uncle.

 

It was worse for my brother... his earliest memories are of the lingering death by kidney failure (in the days before dialysis) of my mother's younger brother, and the impact it had on mum, just a few months after her father died.

 

But one thing we never got was the idea that death made you 'special'... speaking ill of the dead, as long as it was accurate, was pretty much the norm.

[Rhia]

I was raised so differently Gramps, that it's almost scary.

 

My mom believes she can talk to the dead, and that the dead speak through her - so in my family, speaking ill of the dead was considered REALLY bad. Since I've realized that it's nothing more than shit, I'd rather not speak of the dead at all - and just let the dead remain dead.

 

I guess it stems from getting so fed up with my mom claiming that she was "sending" my brother, or my dad, along on the phone to hang out with me. Goddamn that woman is a damned crazy bat!

[Grandpa Harley]

my deepest sympathies... and I agree, the dead are best left 'dead'. In my motley crew, there was the general idea that if there was anything after death, then they'd earned at a break, and that was assuming that one liked them enough to want to talk to them after they'd gone...

 

Ever noticed they never come up with anything useful? Something that unifies gravity with the other three forces? Winning lottery numbers? The site of buried treasure? nothing of use....

[Alice]

In my job I see two different aspects of adoption ...

 

right at the start when everyone is hopeful it will work out but we really don't know for sure ... and adoptions that have gone horribly wrong.

 

I just have to say what a joy it was to read a thread where so many voices talked about how well their adoptions had worked out and how much they love and feel loved by their adopted parents.

[Grandpa Harley]

Al,

 

Any familial relationship can go 'horribly wrong' whether assembled by nature or by human agency. It depends on the people involved.

[Alice]

you are right and of course most of the 'gone horribly wrong' situations I get involved with are those assembled by nature.

 

Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of adoptions work out well because the only ones that come back to the service are the ones that go wrong. I very rarely get to see how things turn out. (sometimes I get a glimpse a few years down the line if the family adopt another child)

 

It depends on the people involved. - this is what I used to find so difficult about 'family finding' - if it all goes wrong, I was the one who picked the people involved.

[Grandpa Harley]

Yeah, sorry Al...

 

For my next trick I require someone's grand mother, and a basket of raw eggs...