family; and in our card I asked if I could write to the family again later in the year, and asked what address I should use.
I remember when Dad died, Mum received hundreds of letters and cards from people. This grieving family could’ve been equally inundated with sympathy mail, and my card, from an Irish unknown, could have justifiably been set aside and never even read. And that would’ve been the end of that. But I did get a reply. And my future correspondence was welcomed.
Was 2nd August a good time to send my letter to this other family?
It had been five months since I’d seen that online obituary and mailed our condolences incognito. And I was going to wait another month to round it off to a respectable six (so I didn’t appear to be carpetbagging), but 2nd August is a special day. It’s Mum’s birthday. I said to Hilary that sending the letter on Mum’s birthday makes her a small part of it all (that, and the fact that any excuse would do to send my letter sooner than later, because we were both struggling with impatience).
Being adopted is knowing that you belong to two families:
•You’ve got loyal and emotional ties to one family;
•And undeniable blood-ties to another.
In a way, getting in touch with my other family could be seen as turning my back on my adopted family. And I can understand that. I can see how it might look to the extended Bailie family. But I’ve never thought of myself as anything other than a Bailie. Sure, I’ve experienced a couple of awkward moments when a family friend or relation has made a comment about me that they should’ve kept to themselves. I’ve been called a bastard a few times with more emphasis on malice than humour; but a remark that cut me to the bone was made when Hilary and I were favoured in a family will, and an elder relation exclaimed, “But you’re not even blood relations.” I don’t think it was said in a mean-hearted way, maybe the person just saw the biological practicalities of the relationship and the words just slipped out, (or maybe they were genuinely angry and prejudiced). In any case it doesn’t matter (and we evened out the bequests anyway, to avoid any ill will).
I didn’t have anything to do with my conception; I didn’t have any choice about which family adopted me. Everything about my conception, birth and adoption was completely out of my control. So why would people harbour any prejudice against me, (or call me a social accessory); shouldn’t it be my birth-parents who carry the stigma?
It’s a shame, because to me my adopted family is my real family. It’s my birth-family that I feel alienated from.
It would’ve been so easy not to write that letter.
I wondered if their mother (my birth-mother) would’ve been angry that her secret had been exposed. Out of respect for her, I guess I should have just shrugged off her death and forgotten about it all. And kept her death a secret from Hilary. But I don’t like secrets, (when people say they want to share a secret with me, I reply that I don’t want to know; unless your asking me for some confidential advice or something, just keep that secret to yourself). Secrets are unhealthy, and rarely have happy endings. Do I feel like a snitch for exposing my birth-mother’s life-long secret? Yeah, sure I do; ignorance is bliss, apparently. But a bottled-up secret can be corrosive.
My excuse for sending that letter is just that everything fell into place; all the ducks were in a row. You can call it coincidence, fate, or divine intervention.
I don’t believe in luck: I believe that things happen, and it’s your circumstances that make it turn out favourable or unfavourable.
I don’t believe in fate: but I believe in positive thinking.
I don’t think it was God. I know He works in mysterious ways, but really?
My Texan business partners say, “Shit happens.” It’s called Life.
The wait between sending that letter and receiving a reply made the days pass very slowly. I didn’t know if I should expect a reply, but Hilary continued to pester me every day, twice a day, asking if anything had come in the mail from the Isle of Man.
And then I received a letter: a short, slightly incredulous, carefully worded reply that acknowledged my letter in a friendly enough manner, but asked for some proof before he shocked his siblings with my accusations.
I hadn’t thought about proof. But it seemed an obvious, prudent and perfectly reasonable thing to ask for.
Hilary and I dug out copies of original birth certificates, and made photocopies. But we knew that the indisputable proof were the letters that their mother had sent to Hilary about fifteen years earlier. Hilary tore her house apart looking for them. (Any monkey with a computer can Photoshop changes to a copy of a birth certificate, but the letters to Hilary from their mother would be the absolutely unquestionable, undeniable proof.)
I think Hilary destroyed those letters when she had to break contact with her birth-mother. She kept the photographs, but got rid of the letters. She was really hurt when she realised that her birth-mother didn’t want to communicate with her anymore, so I don’t blame her if she did destroy the letters. I don’t suppose she ever thought they’d come in handy.
I’ve got an old canoe. It’s one of those homemade things, just a bunch of sticks covered in canvas, with an open top. My Claire and I, and our youngest son, Bowen, were squashed into this thing, paddling about in the sea on a lovely August Sunday afternoon. But not content to risk our lives in this antique death-trap on a shallow bay, we had taken to the notorious tidal rapids of Strangford Lough, and crossed the turbulent current where it’s nearly 200 feet deep to make a dash for the placid waters of Castleward Bay on the other side.
It was a cracker day, and there’s nowhere like it. We broke out our picnic on the isolated headland facing Audley’s Castle, and relaxed into the thick springy tufts of sea pink and couch grass to eat our lunch. It was a perfectly warm and peaceful, beautiful summer’s day.
Claire lay down with her nose in another novel while Bowen and I slipped back into the canoe and glided effortlessly into the honey-still waters of the bay to hunt for jellyfish. And then my phone rang. (I know what you’re thinking, it used to be that you’d go places like this to get away from distractions like telephones, but my mobile phone sealed in a freezer-bag would be indispensable if that old canoe finally collapsed on us.)
Hilary was phoning me. And she was so excited she could hardy get the words out. She’d had a phone call, from one of them.
I’d never heard Hilary so animated and exhilarated.
“They phoned. Our other brother, Graham phoned. And the first thing he said to me was, Welcome.” She was almost crying with joy. I think she’d given up any hope of contact fifteen years ago when she broke contact with our birth-mother, and she’d been trying so hard to subdue any real hope of a reply to my letter to avoid another anticlimax. So all of a sudden she’d kind of, popped.
“You’ve got to phone him.”
“I’m in a canoe, on Strangford Lough.”
“You’ve got to phone him. I told him you would.”
“uuuh,……………. okay.” I wet my finger and wrote his number on the warm canvas body of the canoe.
“It’s starting to dry and disappear. Got to hang up before it’s gone. I’ll call you back.”
A
