[Janeytwo]

Hey All!

First I wanted to clarify this that I wrote:

I have long feared my children might ask me why I didn't just give up entirely. Somewhere along the line, I got the strange notion that they would.

I hope that didn't sound like I expected my children to give up. I would never want that to happen! I just meant that I in my sick mode of thinking in the silent years, I figured they would've thought less of me because I lived and didn't end it. Sigh...the things I told myself.

Anyhoo...

JustPeachy

I have to wonder, was Sister Susie a virgin when she married???

Yes. In fact, she made a point of announcing that at all family gatherings, and her bridal shower before she wed where she made a public joke of how "some of you might not understand my decision to wait but at least I'm not like Janey". She continues to comment on the fact of her virginity before marraige some 18 years later too, though I did finally confront her and she finally stopped making a spectacle of me to the family.

I don't know how you held back from throttling your mom when she said this to you. I feel so angry that she could say such a thing! And I'm willing to bet Sister Susie wasn't so perfect, either.

Yeah. This is the one thing that still stabs at my heart because we were standing in the hallway of the hospital at the time. Susie had just given birth that morning and my mother had called to ask if I wanted to go see her. I told her that that was just too much for me emtionally, but that I was planning to support Susie by going by her house and getting it all spic and span for her and that I had a gift for the baby and would see the baby when Susie got home.

Mom had said that was fine but would I drop by for a moment, she had something for me. And when I got to her house, she said, "So? Are you ready to go see Susie?" (Sad smile inserted here). Mom didn't have anything for me. She just wanted to get me to the house. She'd set me up. Had every intention of making sure I went to the hospital. So I just sort of clambered in the car and went up to the hospital and it was after we'd just gotten off the elevator and were standing in the hallway waiting to leave the hospital that mom said what she said.

Though I would accept mom's apology if she ever made one, I'm not sure I'll ever understand how it was she did that to me because it was deliberate and that's tough to live with.

Ironically enough - given our subject, Susie has tried to commit suicide on 3 separate occasions. Strange that I blocked that out yesterday. I always do that; block that part of Susie out. Weird. Sigh...the legacy of childhood has a long shadow for me and my siblings I guess.

Susie is driven to the depths of despair and I'm driven to the heights of denial. Opposite sides of the same haunting coin I suppose.

Shadowriderer

I've learned in my own life experience one thing. A person never truly knows what they can do, will do, or are capable of doing until they are in that situation.

((( Shadow ))) Thanks for those kinds words!

One of the brilliant 20th Century philosphers said (loosely quoted from memory): "If I am to be honest with myself, I cannot say with absolutely certainty that I wouldn've have been a camp guard at Auschwitz." It's one of the Segals who said this - though I'm not sure if it was Erich or William. (I tried to research but fell short on that mark).

Anyway, that quote has always struck me. What are we capable of in desparate times? It is frightening for me to realize just what I might stoop to if I had to.

Maybe I've often thought that way because I'm a bmom. Not that I'm saying that I "stooped" in any way or that I'm comparing being a bmom to being a camp guard! Lord! I hope I don't come across like that.

It's just that I think (my opinion only) our experience may be why so many of us are loathe to comment on Roe, even though in giving birth we didn't make that choice (no judgement of anyone meant here - honest).

It's because we understand that choices are forced upon us simply by virtue of having a life. The big choices come to all at some point. Do I marry? Do I divorce? Can I do what my loved one has asked of me in their will and sign their DNR? Do I want to have children? Can I carry this child to term? Can I sign those papers? The list is endless.

Becoming a birthparent causes one to lose one's innocense about life at a young age. There is a knowing there...guess that's what I mean.

Quantum I hope you're feeling better and are over your flu!!

I know the person who said to me 'I could NEVER let anyone else raise my child' ....she was debating aborting her third child.....I felt like saying, 'I could never consider doing what you're considering' but I didn't. I just let her say her thing and tried to let it wash over me...she was comparing our situations and they were nothing alike.

Same thing has happened to me on two different occasions - both women opting for Roe. I have also stood by holding my tongue knowing that people say things when they're in pain that maybe they don't even realize they're saying. Though I have to admit, I never had anything to do with either of those women again. One of them is a relative; the other was a friend since childhood. It was just too darn much having someone use my pain in order to make themselves feel better.

But Janey, just because you don't and haven't felt that low doesn't make you any less.

You're so right, bud. It's just taken me so many years to see it. Somebody - I think it was Peachy - said on another thread that bmoms from the closed era were treated so badly. That's true. That "forget and never speak of it again" mentality that was thrust on us? How could a person not feel "less" than? It sure did a number on me.

And why us? Why birthmothers? What did we do that was so terrible that we needed to be bricked up; shut out from society like lepers were. That's how it felt to me, did it to you guys? Like we were lepers and we were banished to the colony of silent shame where we were to live out our lives in the knowledge that we had failed?