The best way to describe it is that I didn’t know what was missing until I found it.
On our long, slow drive from Malibu to Costa Rica in the early-70s my late friend, Bill Cleary, suddenly turned to me in the VW Camper he was driving and said, “I never known anyone like you Fig. You are so many people. I never know who you really are.”
Perplexed, I asked, “Is that a bad thing?” And he answered, “No … it’s puzzling.”
He was right, of course. I’ve always felt like I was different people to different people. I had no problem speaking in front of a television camera or an auditorium full of hundreds of people as long as I was able to become one of my personalities. Like putting on a mask and taking on different roles on different stages for different audiences.
Now I know why. The “core” me was unfinished. It was incomplete. And the incomplete me was not confident to just be itself and nothing else. It was missing something fundamental. It was missing the link to what Maori call “Tūrangawaewae” – my place to stand. The place where I feel whole because I am whole.
This morning I woke with the liberating realization that I was whole. I’d connected with the part of me that has always been missing. I’d already connected with my biological father on a deep level. I knew who he was and and where I fit in. I’d made my peace with him and he with me. The connection was made.
Then, just recently, I met my maternal nieces and nephew online and finally discovered who my biological mother was. I now know what she looked like at various stages of her life and am starting to understand her history and the reasons for my adoption. I’m also confident that making peace with her is yet to come and will be a huge release when it does.
But what I’ve been missing and searching for on that fundamental level has been my sister. The daughter my mother gave birth to before putting me up for adoption. My sister Suzanne.
It comforts me beyond measure that she was also looking for me. She knew I existed but, like me and my adopted family, her family was unwilling to either confirm or deny my existence. Suzanne and I were denied that gift by some need to keep secrets and obfuscate the truth by a generation that confronted guilt by hiding it under layers of denial.
Two days ago I had a long and enlightening meeting with my three nieces and nephew on ZOOM. While I sat in my office at home with my tablet they were in their homes in Maryland on their devices. I could see all of them and they could see each other and me. ZOOM was new to me and far clearer and more reliable than the SKYPE meetings I’ve had in the past. It’s a great tool.
So there was Kathy, Mary, Margaret and John. John had set the whole thing up and helped me understand how it works. Once a minor technical glitch was ironed out the entire meeting went without a hitch. I hadn’t slept well and had been a bit “tetchy” about the upcoming meeting and Anne had not only been understanding but very supportive while my nerves were clearly jangled. And they needn’t have been, of course. My new family welcomed me warmly.
That was on a Sunday afternoon in Maryland and a Monday morning here.
It’s now a Wednesday morning and it’s amazing how much can change in such a short time. On their Monday my niece Kathy visited her mother Suzanne in the nursing home she’d been in since 2018. She had what has been described to me as severe dementia or Alzheimer’s and she no longer speaks.
That makes what happened when Kathy visited her even more significant.
In a previous visit Kathy had read my letter to her and let her know the brother she’d been looking for so long had been found. Kathy and Suzanne were holding hands at the time and it appeared that Suzanne reacted by rubbing Kathy’s hand.
On this visit Kathy had her tablet and was able to show Suzanne some photos I’d sent her showing me at various stages in my life. Kathy had told her my name was Robert and when Suzanne saw one of the photos she said, “Robert.”
Her mother hadn’t spoken or reacted verbally for years. Kathy was so surprised that she asked the nursing home staff member who was in the room at the time if she had heard her mother speak. “She said Robert.”
After we kiss, say something loving and “God bless” we turn out our reading lights and pray. We both have a “healing prayer list” and I can often visualize and feel the person I’m praying for. But that only happens with people I’ve known and met. Last night it happened when I prayed for Suzanne. We connected and the part of me that had been missing had softly and lovingly fallen into place. For the first time in my life I was whole.
The missing link © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 