My Story Is Mine To Tell

Contrary to what I might write on a CV, or how I hope I present myself at work, I actually have very few skills. I obtained two degrees mainly due to tenacity and writing about things so mind-numbingly dull that I'm not sure my tutors even bothered to read them, and I get through life on a combination of long words and hit-and-miss witticisms that provide an illusion of intelligence.

The one thing I can do to a passable level is communicate, and so, for the past few years, I've been trying, in writing and in interviews, to convey in an accessible way the many complexities and conflicts around adoption. I volunteered, as I explained in my last post on this now-sporadic blog, for an adoption charity, which basically meant that, if adoption was in the news for some reason and they wanted someone who could vaguely string a sentence together to comment on it, out I would come. This came to a head before Christmas when I had an article in Metro. It was extremely hard to write, and the resulting fall-out from the charity's insistence I change a word, and constant follow-up from journalists demanding "just a bit more", drove me close to the edge. What drove me almost to a literal edge as well as a metaphorical one was a message from my birth father's wife telling me "everyone" was "sick and tired" of me "carrying on" about being adopted and I needed to just shut up and get on with my life. While I might eventually write (if anyone is really interested) about what happened next, I am going to write this now for two reasons: 1.) This is my story to tell, and while I am under no illusions that many will find my navel-gazing uninteresting, I will not be told how, if or with whom it should be shared. 2) I've been having specialist therapy for the first time ever (having tried the more generic kind several times before) and after a cathartic discussion this week about my grandmother, I feel able, for the first time, to write about her. 

In my therapy, we've isolated (without too much difficulty) the death of my grandmother earlier in the year as the trigger for a recent, destructive downward spiral. From all my "carrying on" about adoption, many people will know I was "found" a few years back by a family member, resulting in the opening up of many potential relationships, often with people whom I didn't even know existed. Some were positive, some difficult. Some fizzled out, others are continuing, to one degree or another. But by far the most positive was with Barbara, my nana. I realised that I never really paid tribute to her, perhaps because her death last year was easily one of the most devastating things ever to happen in my life.

Adoptees often tire of the many documentaries that present a happy-ever-after. You know the ones: an adoptee and their family member - usually the mother - meet for the first time and immediately they fall naturally into one another's arms; there are tears and comments like "you look so much like me!" and "this just feels so right." Non-adoptees think this is beautiful - after all, everyone likes a fairytale - and adoptees sigh because once again here we are providing the rest of you with a good story. Meeting my mum and brother - both of whom I love - I was almost straining to find things in common, willing myself to feel some deep and instant bond when common sense dictated this just wasn't logical with people I had never met. And then I met my grandmother, and everything fell into place.

My grandmother - Nana - was wonderful. She was ebullient, funny, naughty. She sparkled with life, with joy. She was a natural communicator, a poet, a genius with words. I soon discovered, like me, that not only did she write, but she wrote humour. My Nana could sit with a circle of people around her and have them in stitches for hours. Her personality dazzled, engaged and amused. The first time I met her a little bit of my world clicked into place: immediately I felt relief and joy at finally finding this common bond without making any special effort to manufacture it; immediately I thought "this is where I came from."

Over the next couple of years my Nana and I exchanged old-fashioned letters, and I giggled at her easy, conversational style. "I've been watching that Roger Federer in the tennis," she wrote once, "ooh, I do love him." 

We met just once more - a joyous, boozy family evening with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I owe them all so much. They - who had known nothing about me until a couple of years before - welcomed me into their family unconditionally. they showed me a level of love and kindness I did nothing to earn, and for that I am eternally grateful. 

The week my grandma died I tried to get a flight over to see her, but I had a conference at work on the Monday and Tuesday, so I arranged to fly over on the Wednesday, knowing this would be a trip with the sole aim of saying goodbye one last time. She died on the Tuesday morning, and I will hate myself for the rest of my life for not going sooner. While again the family was at pains to include me at the funeral to the point that my picture was even included on a collage of family photographs. Nearly ten months on, if I'm honest I am still consumed not with good memories (though they are there) but rage, regret and pain that I had only 3 years to get to know this amazing, special, vibrant woman, and no words can do justice for the admiration, love and gratitude I still feel for her. 

When my (adoptive) grandma on my dad's side died I was very sad, because I adored her, but it was not devastating in the same way. I had known her all my life, had watched her grow old and slip into dementia. She died in her 90s after a long, fruitful life which she had lived full of love for those around her. I didn't get this chance with Nana. Barbara Fitchett, this is too little, too late, but I love you dearly and I thank you from every fibre of my being for every moment, every letter, every hug. Rest in peace.

I talked about Nana in more detail when I was carrying on about adoption on this podcast.