In the beginning…

Published April 12, 2012 | By Krishna

A positive beginning

I am 42 years old, but at 3 weeks of age I was adopted.

I’ve always known that I was adopted; as a young child, my adoptive parents incorporated my arrival to the family into bedtime stories, there was simply no time that I didn’t know.

As I got older, the details of my adoption became more elaborate such as the hospital where I was born and the reasons I was given up, but was only offered in snippets. Growing up I felt privileged and fortunate to be adopted into a healthy middle class family where I was loved, I certainly felt special. In hindsight I’m not sure that feeling special was only because that’s what you are told to feel.

Teen discontent

Up until the age of 15 I believed what I was told, that I had been birthed by a young girl at 14 at Crown Street Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Sydney. As a preteen I became obsessed with knowing who my real mother was, who I was and where I fit in with it all. I had begun to feel out of place in the world, misunderstood, and different to others; others who had ‘real’ mums and dads and brothers and sisters. My feelings ran deep, but any exploration of these feelings was met with a casual brush-off by my mum and dad who where somewhat emotionally distant. I needed to know who I was and why I was how I was. At a time when ‘fitting in’ is of such a concern to a teenager, this is further magnified when you are adopted. I often wondered why my life had to be so different to everybody else’s? At least other people had the luxury of knowing who they were.

The family secret

At fifteen I discovered the real reason for years of subtle avoidance around the subject of my origins. The reason behind unspoken words and pushed down feelings. After an afternoon of sulking on the sofa with my arms folded because “I just want to know who I am”, mum disclosed the family secret, a secret that if it had been exposed earlier could have prevented years of anguish and depression as I had felt increasingly dispossessed during my early teens.

The truth was so simple, in a complicated kind of way. My natural mother had given birth to me in New Zealand when she was fourteen years old and alone. Her sister, thirteen years her senior and unable to bare children, was living in Australia with her new husband. As a tiny baby, just 21 days old, I made my maiden journey across the Tasman to Australia in the arms of an air stewardess, to be met by my new parents at the airport. I was taken home, loved and provided for and subsequently my adoption was completed in the Family Court of Australia. My reaction to mum telling me the whole truth was profound relief. I gasped “that means nana is my real nana, and uncle Ray is my real uncle and aunty Irene is my real aunty; and so I went on through the list of relatives who were now my real relatives. By this stage mum was in a bit of a state, but I got up and carried on my afternoon as though nothing much had happened. I was oblivious to the turmoil I would feel in later years that the impact of a family secret such as this can have.

An unexpected development

Some might see this as a happy ending, but it was really just the beginning of the story. A few years later I was to take my first independent overseas trip so needed to get a passport. I had always thought I was an Australian citizen as my adoption took place here and I held an Australian registered birth certificate, but as it turned out I was actually a New Zealander so required a NZ passport. This was simply a case of retrieving my NZ registered birth certificate (assuming there was one somewhere), and obtaining the passport I needed. Not so simple it seems. There was no birth certificate to be found in my known registered name. There was a certificate with the name of a stranger, so removed from who I thought I was, the name was Cherie Lodge. Cherie! All I could think of was how much a hated ‘ch’ names because they sounded weak and feminine (of which I was determined I most certainly was not). What was most ironic is that I had hated my name Krishna my entire life, it was such a burden, I had always been chanted at, questioned on it and how I longed for a ‘normal’ name. Why can’t I have a name like everyone else, I had thought! Why do I always have to be different? I felt so strongly about this that I decided I would only answer to Kate early in high school, and the name Krishna was discarded. Yes, that was who I was, Kate. A good strong, not to be messed with identity.

So, back to Cherie and the passport, I had to either accept my NZ passport in this foreign name, or become an Australian citizen so I could keep my legal name Krishna. I decided upon the latter.

So here I was, a young adult with the world at her feet, a new passport, an official citizenship, and a bright career in advertising. Yes, I was Krishna – unique, with an interesting story to tell, there was no-one quite like me! By now I revelled in my differences. I embraced my name and persona. I developed a real yearning for understanding the culture my name came from, and even searched for a tattoo of the Hindu deity of my name’s origin. I settled for a little Sanskrit ‘om’ symbol, permanently etching an identity upon my shoulder that would somehow signify who I had decided I was.

Reunited

In my 30’s I attended the second wedding of 81 year old grandmother to dear old Digger at a simple ceremony in New Zealand surrounded by scores of blood relatives. I had always had a soft spot for nana which may have been because she and my aunt Irene had cared for me during the first 3 weeks of my life. What a ‘first’ nanas wedding day was. It was here that I was able to share a face to face moment with the women who had given me life, fully comprehending who she was. This was no longer my ‘aunt’, but my birth mother! On that special day, I stood beside my natural mother and her 5 sons – my half brothers, to pose for a photograph that would be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. At that moment I belonged. There were others who looked like me, shared traits good and bad just like me, at last I felt that I fitted somewhere. I no longer felt different. Instead I felt like others must feel when the stand amongst blood relatives. I belonged. The jigsaw was complete. From this time on a had a sense of peace about how I connected with the world.

Reflection

Although this may have been the end of a chapter, it was the beginning of coming to grips with all that my life had previously meant and my personal experiences of self discovery. It has only been as the years have progressed that I recognise the deep impact of not been told the complete truth of my adoption and family connections earlier. This kind of secrecy impacts across all kinds of relationships and can make it difficult to fully trust others. Whilst I understand that there were only loving, good intentions in keeping this a secret for as long as it was, it has resulted in a hardening of my heart, and frustration that it is a touchy area that I don’t feel I can discuss openly with my adoptive mum. As soon as a discussion turns to a deeper emotional level, or things are questioned, mums reaction is always the same “that’s just life” she says. The inability for both of us to discuss things that are deep and meaningful without being flippant definitely impacts the ability to feel closeness with mum at times. It has been only fairly recently that I’ve realised that I harbour any resentment regarding this misrepresentation after dreaming of angrily expressing the hurts about lies I was told surrounding my birth and adoption, before that I had been completely unaware of these buried feelings. And who knows, I often wonder what other information has been withheld from me relating to my conception, birth and adoption. Perhaps there lies another chapter if I pursue finding my birth father who is traceable, and only just a flight away. The need to completely know the truth fuels that yearning to keep seeking it. I like the truth. I am comfortable with truth. But the truth becomes a mockery when it is intermingled with untruths.

People don’t understand the depth of feeling that an adopted child experiences. It is often thought we are disrespectful to our adoptive parents for wanting to uncover the reality of who we are and where we have come from. This is not the case at all. It is simply that something as fundamental and meaningful as identity is somehow taken from us and we often need to piece it back together so somehow it all makes sense. Aren’t I at least entitled to that? But hey, I guess it’s not all about me! Actually, I’ve never felt anything is about me. All of my relationships have always been on other peoples terms, and I have been merely a passenger. I find it difficult to ask for what I need, and expect that any need that I have will be deemed as not important. I remember misbehaving as a child and being told ‘you are an ungrateful little wretch’, just thinking those words now bring tears, and translate into not being allowed to express deeply felt emotions and hurts, that to do so would mean I am ungrateful for the blessings I have had throughout life. Even writing this down brings up of these feelings. Like I am not permitted to express what I have felt. That I just have to accept circumstances and they need not be spoken about. There is a pain inside that is rising up like a festering wound right this minute, but now that it is being exposed it can be allowed to heal completely. Pain aside, I really am grateful for the life I have been given. I know I can make my own choices now and do not have to wallow in the past, or somehow pay for others poor choices.

So, here I am today at 42 partway through the journey. After years, of confusion surrounding identity, birth names, given names and chosen names, feelings of not being accepted, good enough, worthy, and at times betrayed, I recently had an unexpected revelation while praying. I saw myself, a newborn babe, lying in the palm of God. It seems He was there all along. Even when I was nothing more than a problem to be solved during a conversation over a kitchen table. I was in the palm of His hand. I looked up the name given to me at birth on the Internet. Cherie – means ‘dear one’. Finally I know who I truly am. I am not a mistake, a complication, or even the answer to someone’s prayer at the expense of my own hopes and dreams. My true identity is ‘God’s dear one’. That is the real me that I am only barely beginning to experience. Now that is a miracle.

Post Script: This story was originally penned in 2008 when I was 42, I am now 46. Since then I have met my biological father and also discovered I have a young half sister. Just precious. I have also come to terms with many of the feelings expressed in this memoir, and a lot of forgiveness has taken place. Fortunately. (This story was published in a collection of adoptions stories in 2008 – ‘Touched by Adoption – Journeys Towards Wholeness’)