50 years

5 Decades Ago... 

Oh wow. It's hard to believe that fifty whole years have already arrived. Whew that was quick. It almost feels like it was just yesterday. It's kind of hard to believe since I am not that old, but fifty years ago, is when I was rehomed. Okay maybe that isn't a good terminology to use. Fifty years ago, was when I got adopted and then taken to my new home to live with my new family.

I've written this story before. But I had written it in separate parts and blogs because it did get lengthy. And I actually eliminated talking much about life from age 4 up to age 27 from it. I'm pretty sure this blog will be just as lengthy if not more than the others. 

So, here I go again retelling my story. I like to keep it fresh in my mind. And if you are up to the challenge of going on this adventure with me, then sit back and relax and enjoy learning about my life for the past almost 54 years. 

Don't forget the popcorn and soda!

So, the story goes like this....I was adopted at the age of 3 years, 11 months and 3 weeks old. I vividly remember this day so long ago, even at a very young age. Things like this get stamped in your memory to stay forever. 

The day I was adopted was August 13, 1974. That's the day I was taken away from the only parents that I remember. They were my foster parents. And from what I've been told by several others who knew and remember them and me is that they were heartbroken when I was taken away. And I, being so young didn't understand what was happening but I knew it was something big. I'm pretty sure it was all explained to me, but I didn't know how to react on that day.

The first thing that I remember was that I was in a big scary place (I believe it was the Social Services department) with lots of people around and for whatever reason, was stripped down to nothing and then left alone in a room with the door wide open for anyone to look in. Standing there all alone, I look over and see a little boy staring at me, so being embarrassed I run and hide in an underneath cabinet. 

I guess it didn't take long for them to find me. I must have been too squirmy, and they heard me. But I don't remember once being scolded by anyone for it. And not even later on when the nice lady that tried to give me a doll (which I believe I still have) As she was trying to hand me the doll, I decided I didn't want no stupid doll, so I threw it on the floor and thought to myself if she reaches down and picks it up and hands it back to me, then I'm just going to throw it with all my might back down to the floor. But this lady was so kind and caring and sweet to me, that when she actually did bend down and pick up that doll and handed it back to me, I couldn't be mean. So, I graciously accepted it. 

And apparently that day when I hid from the little boy staring at me, was not the first hiding of the day. I was told that my foster parents tried hiding me as well. Like I said they were devastated that they would be losing me, so they tried hiding me but apparently, we were found, and I was taken to that scary building. And since they tried hiding me, they lost rights to be able to meet with my new potential adoptees. And I say potential because that day, my new parents to be, were potential adoptees of me. We were scheduled to meet each other that day and then the adoption would take place later if this new family wanted to continue on with it. But that day they were offered to go ahead and take me before any other issues arose from the foster parents.

So, let's talk about the foster parents for a bit. This couple were apparently someone who my bio mother knew and bio father as well. They ran a foster home and fostered a total of 20+ kids. I believe the exact count we were told was 21. I was their last foster child, is what I was told as well. At that time, I believe my foster parents were in their fifties. Which really isn't too old, haha. But at that time apparently, they were not qualified to adopt me their own self due to their ages. Which was also devastating to them. 

Now let's start from the very beginning of time when I came into existence. I was born two months early and arrived on my big sister's 9th Birthday. But at that time our mother had lost custody of my big sister which we will touch on a tiny bit later in the story. But the story goes like, my parents were separated before I was conceived. So, my mother moved in with the foster parents who allowed my two older brothers and I to stay there with them. Along with the other children they fostered. My mother and brothers lived there for a total of a year and a half or maybe longer and due to our mother being an absent mother more times than they ended up allowing, they finally had to ask her to leave, and she did just that but then became an abandoning mother to us because she left without us that day and didn't want to take us with her.  

Then that is when our father was called up and told the situation. He came and picked up my brother's and informed the foster parents that he would not be taking me along with them since I was not his. And that I was conceived after his and my mother's separation. So, I'm guessing at this point I became one of their foster children. I'm not sure if it was officially or by default. 

So, life continued on, and I grew and learned and have a couple of fond memories of still living there and fond memories of another little girl who lived there for a while who was a year younger than I. At that time, I thought she was just a foster kid like me but learned later on that she was a child who was born to another foster child who had previously lived there as a foster kid and later came back for a place to stay along with her daughter. 

Another memory I recall is of all of the foster children were outside enjoying running around and playing while I stood at the back screen door trying to convince another kid that was outside to come break me out (open the door that apparently was locked). They tried but without success. And then I just couldn't understand why I was being punished just because I wet my pants and wasn't allowed outside with the other children Tee-hee.  My foster dad who sat at the kitchen table behind me just ignored my whimpers to get outside while he sat and read the newspaper. 

Then I remember a time that we were told that we would be going to church. I'm not sure if my foster parents attended church regularly or not. But I was so excited about going so I'm assuming I had never been before. But I remember my foster mother instructing me to put my shoes on. And I could barely contain my excitement. But then I don't have any memories of actually going to church though. 

And speaking of shoes...when my adopted parents got me, my poor little toes were starting to grow overlapping one another. They came to the conclusion that my shoes I wore probably were too tight for me and I don't know but maybe at that time my foster parents did the best they could. And we're going to talk more about my overlapped toes later. 

I had a typical life with my new family. I had three new older brothers and my own room since I was the only girl. Life ended up being good.

I was told that I had 2 older brothers and an older sister with my bio family. Who I only got to see a few more times after our mother walked out on us and our father picked our brothers up. So, my sister was taken from the home at the age of 5. That was before I came along. She sustained some medical needs, and our mother neglected to get her medical help, so some family members happen to stop by and saw that my sister needed to be taken to the hospital, so she was taken there and then once she was better to go home, they did not send her back to our parents. She ended up just like me, in a way, but living with various foster families and then tossed around to various family members. She eventually went back to live with our fathers and brothers when she was older. Probably around the same time I ended up being adopted. 

So, life moved on with my new family and I would often talk about my other house and toys so my new dad decided that maybe he could take me back to visit with my foster parents. He was a little hesitant in fear that if he took me back that I wouldn't want to leave to come back with them. 

But we had one problem though. We didn't know my foster parents names or how to get in contact with them. But since me new dad was a police officer at the time he was able to find out who they were and where they lived, and he and my new mom took me back to visit with them. I don't recall how many times we visited them in all, but I remember a few visits with the last one being when I was around 16 years of age, I believe. We stopped in to see them and my foster mother took us over to the nursing home where my foster dad was at. His health was failing him at that time. But we had a good visit with them. 

Life moved on some more and I would often think about my other brothers and sister and wonder what they were like. See I don't really remember them when I was at the foster home because I was so young. But when I was adopted, I was given a short story about myself. And it told me that I had two older brothers and a sister. So I always had that knowledge with me growing up. 

I would wonder if they knew anything about me and would imagine that they were too young to even know I was born perhaps or not told and not even knew I existed. 

So as life passed on, I basically was an only child growing up. All of my brothers had grown into adults and went out on their own to start their families. That left me an only child. It's crazy to have so many siblings and be the only child growing up. My overlapped toes started growing back out like they should, thank goodness because the family doctor that I was taken to after my adoption suggested that a toe on each foot may have to be removed to make them grow correctly. Now that I am older, that definitely doesn't make any more sense than it did to me at age four years old. I'm glad I didn't have to have any toes cut off. 

There were times as I got older, that I would wish over and over and dream about having a little sister to play with or boss around. That never happened but I did get little nieces and nephews to play with. So that's as close to having siblings. And as I was entering into my pre-teens, they would want to stay over all of the time, and I babysat them a lot, so it really was like having little siblings around. 

Before I knew it my teen years approached, and I still would think about my other siblings and parents and wonder why my parents didn't want me. I was only told that my mother was sick and couldn't care for me. But I wondered why another family member couldn't take care of me. Because at that time I was only told in my short letter about me that she was sick. I didn't know about anything else and about her walking out on us when I was a baby. 

I wish I could paint my bio mother in a prettier light or even as a sickly woman not being able to care for her children and having no other option to let someone else take care of them. And then her worried and concerned about us and not being able to wait until she could once see us again hopefully one day. But unfortunately, she was not that type of mother at all. She was troubled, uncaring and unconcerned about any of her children. She was abusive, negligent, and let me be taken away from my siblings and anything and anyone I was accustomed too. And I was told that she gave other children after me up for adoption because she didn't want them as well. 

I don't hold any of that against her or even feel bitter about it. I am thankful actually that she left me in the care of people who did love me and took care of me. She could have just let us die or left us by ourselves. 

So, as I finished high school and graduated and entered into adulthood. I married at the young age of 21. By then I had not seen my foster parents since I was 16 years old. I often thought of them, but we lost touch. I wanted to send them a graduation invitation when I graduated school and a wedding invitation when I was getting married, but we didn't have a good mailing address for them so eventually we lost touch for a while. 

So, a few more years moved on and I started a family. So, when our daughter was around two years old, I had a dream one night that my bio family was looking for me. So that set a definite desire in me to find them one day but at that time I had no idea how. Back then there was no Internet and definitely no DNA tests to take. 

I also had a desire to visit with my foster parents again. I didn't even know if they were still living but I wanted to find out, so I mentioned it to my dad. And remember he used to be a police officer and a deputy sheriff at that. So, we set off one day to head to where we first visited my foster parents the last time we saw them. 

One Fall Day we set off to see if we could find my foster parents. At this point I wasn't too sure if they were still living but was hoping to be able to find them alive. We pulled into the small town where we last visited them at with no clue as to the exact house that we last went to. But as we drove from one end of the town to the other, we settled on a gas station near the highway. as we pulled into the parking lot my dad made mention that he was going to check the phone and look in a phone book to see if he could find my foster parents name and number in it. So, as he stepped out of the truck, he by passed the pay phone and phone book and decided to take a step inside of the gas station. 

In the meantime, I remember trying to search for the tiny screw that had fallen out of my eyeglasses and onto the floorboard of the truck. I believe I actually did find it and it didn't take me long because before I knew it, my dad was walking back to the truck with a lady following behind him. If you ever knew my dad, you know that he had never met a stranger, and he was far from being shy. So, it was no surprise for him to be bringing someone back to the vehicle with him. But before they got to the vehicle, we had parked at the far end of the parking lot, I of course wondered why this lady was following him, I figured that maybe she wanted to just speak to me her own self to be sure I was someone who indeed knew my foster parents and maybe verify with me her own self. 

The nice lady approaches and introduced herself by name of Betty, she was also the owner of the gas station, she then told me that my dad was inquiring about my foster parents, but before she began to tell me anything, she asked me if I was one of the Gibson girls. And continued to talk about them. Well, at this point in life the only thing I was aware of was that I had one older sister and two older brothers, and I did not know their names neither did I know what my last name had been before I was adopted. So, I could not answer her question about who I was. And I wondered to myself then how she figured that I was supposedly one of these "Gibson" girls so was inquiring about. 

This was a lot to take in as she chatted on about my "potential" bio family who I knew hardly anything about. I was thinking the entire time, I hope she doesn't have me confused with one of the other foster kids. And then she said, oh and by the way I am your foster parents' niece. Wow, it seemed at that point we had definitely found the right person to lead us to my foster parents. She went on to let me know that my foster dad had passed about four years prior and that my foster mom was living in the nursing home further North. She then told me that if I wanted to know more about my bio family, that she could give me more information and then she asked if it was okay that she spoke to an aunt of mine that she used to be neighbors with. I told her it was okay, but did kind of have a little hesitation in whether she absolutely knew I was connected to that family. It had been close to twenty-five years since she had last seen me as an almost four-year-old living with my foster parents. I had changed a lot. 

Betty gave me her telephone number and directions to go visit my foster mother. So, we thanked her and drove over to the Nursing home there to visit with my foster mother. We arrived there and went in to visit. We had a nice visit, not too long but a good visit with her. She talked about her upcoming dental procedure that she would be having soon, and she seemed to try to recall who I was. She said she knew who I was, but I am not too sure, but either way it was good to see her again. I could still see the familiarity in her that I remember the last time I visited with her. It was heartwarming to be able to visit with her that day and a visit that I will always remember.

We left there that day, and my heart felt full, but I was still nervous about whether I had possibly found the correct bio family and how soon it would be before I was able to meet any of them. The next day I called Betty up, in the back of my mind I was hoping that she would have more to tell me, but I was kind of figuring that maybe she didn't yet. But was hoping she wouldn't say, oh I am so sorry I have the wrong family after all. But that was not the outcome of the call after all. She had also spoken to my foster mom after we visited with her, and she had told her about my visit to see her the day before. She also had spoken to one of my bio aunts who gave her a couple of my siblings last contact info they had for them. 

She also gave me my siblings names and what she knew about them. After getting off the phone with her, I tried the phone numbers to reach out to my siblings before I got too nervous, but I wasn't able to get anyone to pick up and I didn't want to leave a message saying, hey this is your long-lost sister. So, I patiently waited to hear from them. And, by the next day and after I spoke to Betty, I was more convinced that she had me matched to the correct family. 

In the meantime, I waited for someone to get in touch with my siblings which seemed like forever, But I heard from an aunt and a cousin. The aunt was one of my bio uncle wives who knew a whole lot about my bio parents and myself. She filled me in on a lot of information. She told me that my mother had at least three other children after I was born who were all boys which included a set of twins, but one twin passed, and the two surviving children were both placed for adoption right after birth. She also shared with me that she and my uncle were trying to adopt me before I was adopted by my new parents. And they had adopted one of my cousins from one of my mother's sisters. 

After speaking to this aunt, I was more convinced that I had the correct family. But it wasn't until I received one of the most important calls yet, and that was from my big sister. She had recently moved to Florida, so the family did not have her updated phone number, so it took some time to locate her, I would say about a month or less, but when she called and we talked one of the first things she asked was when my birthday was, so I told her, and she said to me, that is my birthday too. She knew that I was born on her birthday, but I did not know that bit of info until she told me. She also shared with me that she would always wish me a happy birthday each year when our birthdays would roll around. And she remembered being able to see me while I was at my foster parent's house and coming over to visit and she remembered holding me in her lap there before I got adopted. 

After talking to my aunt, cousin and sister and one niece I waited to hear from my brothers which didn't take much longer because the word spread around that I was looking for them and before I found them, like I said earlier in this blog was that I wasn't sure whether they even knew I existed but the whole time they knew all about me, saw me, and continued to look for me for years after I was adopted. 

I learned from one brother that we had a younger brother almost ten years younger than myself by our bio dad. He had also heard that our mother had more children after me as well. I had also learned that both of our parents had already passed on, during the time I found my siblings. 

So about two weeks passed after we went by the nursing home to visit with my foster mother and remember I told you that she talked about getting some dental work done. Well, she got that done and did well during the surgery, but sadly she ended up having complications afterwards and passed away before I could see her again. I was able to go to her visitation at the funeral home. I don't remember everyone that I saw or talked to that night, it was over whelming, but I do know that some of the foster children were there. And remember earlier in my story, there was one particular one that I was really interested in seeing again. I remember playing with her at the foster home and could remember her being close to my age but that was the only memory that I had of her at that time. I ended up receiving some photos of myself when I was at the foster home with my foster parents, my bio mother and my brothers. I will try to attach some to this blog post. And also, I received a photo with the little girl who I remembered. Which would later be revealed to me who it was. 

There has been a little over 25 years now that have passed since we rolled into town that day and spoke to Betty. She has been a Godsend and a special friend and family to us since then. I have even been invited to family reunions that were held for my foster mother's side of the family. One particular reunion some of the other foster children were also invited and that is when I figured out the mystery of the little girl who I remember because her mom showed up that day and introduced herself to me. She told me that she was a foster child there and that she had left and ended up pregnant and when her daughter was young, they moved back in for a brief period of time with our foster parents. So that solved the mystery of who the little girl was. But her mom remembered me and toting me around when I was a baby. 

There have been numerous family reunions so far for both sides of my families and I have met a lot of cousins along the way. Plus, a lot of my Paternal aunts and uncles Also, I made the decision to take an Ancestry DNA test back around 2014 to help out with my one line of Ancestors and a brick wall that we were trying to break through for them. Remember I was told earlier on that my siblings and I possibly didn't have the same father. Well, knowing this info, I just kind of ignored it, or didn't give it much else thought and I didn't even wonder who my father may be if it was not the same one as my siblings. So, I mentioned this to a distant cousin that it could be a possibility but that I wasn't really expecting to have a different father. I never felt convinced that I did. I even had done my Ancestry tree with the same as my sibling's father's Ancestors listed as my realities. 

So, I sent off my DNA salvia and waited. The results were in a few weeks later and at that time DNA testing through Ancestry was still fairly new and not many relatives had tested yet. But when I opened my results, I did have a couple of cousins showing in the first to second cousin range. The first one showing was a maternal cousin I ended up figuring out who it was because I had already spoke to her. And then the next cousin on the list showing was one I did not know but he had all of my father's Ancestors showing in his tree. The same father who claimed I wasn't his. So that was my clue that more than likely I had the same father as my siblings. That cousin and I share paternal second great grandparents because our great grandparents were siblings. as time as gone on and more cousins have sent in their DNA for testing along with my sister and some nieces then of course everyone was showing related in the way that they should, and I am indeed their full sibling and his child too. 

I have since done my DNA testing with 23 and Me so that hopefully one day if our other younger siblings from our mother decide to find their family then it will be easier for them too and I can help them with any questions that they will have. 

I have met so many new relatives along the way and even some who I have discovered that have lived in the same area as me growing up. The area that my Paternal Ancestors were mostly from was near the Tennessee border in Scott County Virginia which is well over a five-hour drive from where I was brought to after being adopted and grew up at and my Maternal Ancestors were mostly from Rappahannock Virginia and Northern Virginia which is well over a three-hour drive from me. I ended up growing up around distant cousins that I had no clue were blood related to me. And I am still learning fascinating things about my Ancestors. 

So, that about wraps up my Adoption story and I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing about it. If there are any other questions, please let me know.