My Life-and the birth mom

If God can handle SEEING what’s going on in my life, you should be able to hear about it, if you’re a so- called Christian. I come again confused about the way we don’t really live like we ought. “Let brotherly love continue” says the Bible. But we have no idea what that means.

The patient I met at the gastroenterologist’s office has hemorrhoids. Thankfully it’s nothing major. I don’t know what treatment he provided during the check and he didn’t organise any follow up, so we both assume that if he could tie any off, he did. Well, she didn’t know that there’s anything to do. I asked if he treated them or if he gave her cream or if he tied them off or if he will just leave them. She said she would phone the office and ask.

Then she kept checking on me. How my op had gone etc. And, just like with the other church ‘sister,’ as I explained how grateful I was for her attentiveness given she has very loving and caring siblings and a mother who panics with her, I told her what my ‘family’ is like. Has been like. Was like. And how it contrasts with the ‘strangers’ I have been blessed with who sincerely care about me, always asking about certain symptoms, how I am etc.

Her response was, “Well, that was in the past. Forgive and forget. You now have …”

And she rambled on.

I’m sitting at home one day post-op, husband at work. Nobody to help me and you’re telling me how my explaining to you that I have a sister right here in the city but she hasn’t even come to see her four year old nieces and has no clue I’ve had surgery is useless? That I must “forget?”

As I said to her, “I’m not a machine. There is no off button to my mind. And I’m thanking you for being a contrast. Instead, she could have expressed loads of gratitude that she has not only family that cares, but a friend right there in the same apartment complex that drove her home and fetched her daughter. Many of us live isolated lives. Those who would want to help, unable due to distance, money, or their own ill-health.

I like showing people how grateful I am for them. To let them know the wounds their love covers over. But they want me to pretend there are no wounds that need covering. And I’ll never do that.

Not when I have so many who appreciate knowing that very thing! Not when there are people who are inspired and motivated and made grateful for their lives precisely because they know how they have it good. Every story has the capacity to be a blessing. And I won’t stop telling mine.

As I told a friend whose father hated her and her siblings… Instead of telling me to forget, tell me how you’re pleased that I’ve got the capacity to love deeply despite never receiving that same levelof of love. Marvel at how we don’t have to continue generational curses because I’ve proven it. Because that is my point. To every person who says, “My mother had a temper, I’m just like her, sue me!” I can say, “My mother had a temper. I’m not like her. Thank God!”

We aren’t our history. But our history is part of us. But you can’t know it unless you meet someone who has broken the mould. Until you meet the apple that has fallen FAR from the tree. Honestly, I am VERY happy with who I am. My daughter’s birth mom asked me to foster her baby because I’m the only one she knows who loves properly. Tell me that doesn’t show something amazing and profound!

(We refused. I will never traumatise a child by having them grow up bonded with me only to send them away. We will give her some support to try feed the baby and diaper her. If the child was older, already bonded to her, and understood they were coming temporarily, it would be different. But to come and then in a month or a year or two years have to go again- it wouldn’t be fair on my children or myself.

And honestly, I can’t. She herself said she felt bad asking given she knows my health issues but again, I’m the only good mom she knows.

I can’t mother a baby. My heart is strong. But it’s impossible physically. What would I have done with a baby and no help after surgery!? Plus, I don’t have space or money for seven children. I’m barely clinging on with the six I have. If my AS was under control and I was living pain-free and able to be a full mother to the ones I have, then maybe I’d have considered it. (NOT!! The area they live in is very different to ours. There’s a lot that would traumatize a child who has come to think of me as their mom and our area as her home. It would kill the child to leave here.)

My story won’t change. My story is mine. But I also live in appreciation of the blessings I have. Someone even apologised for asking where the bleeding post op is coming from. Hello!!! THANK YOU FOR CARING! It’s not normal for me! Even now it makes me want to cry. And I think that’s part of what I’m trying to express. This kind of care and concern is not the norm for me, and so it means a LOT. A lot more than I suspect some realise when their siblings phone and ask and check and their mother prays and calls and checks.

As for my photo caption. She doesn’t really work with my husband. She even has to ask me if he will be at the office. But we met when their workplace was meant to deliver goods at a shelter that she suggested as she and her family support the shelter. Nobody else from the office pitched up. So, we started talking and then she added me on Facebook and then she gave me her number…