A PREAMBLE TO AN ADOPTION RAMBLE

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In 1948 a baby was born in Memphis. Five weeks later the baby was put on an airplane and taken to California to live with a family. In 1952, in Shelby County, in the corrupt State of Tennessee, an adoption record was sealed for a four-year old child who had lived in California since early August 1948. Fast forward, 48 years when the State of Tennessee opens the sealed adoption files to the children adopted in the black-market adoption ring run by Georgia Tann. It is a well-known fact that Miss Tann fictionalized the pedigrees of those she sold. The file that landed in my hands had three typewritten tales – somewhat thinly aligned. The first name of the fathers all started with “C” and the last name all started with “H”. That’s it. That was where the similarities ended. Another angle that Georgia liked to employ was to take the smaller babies and give them a later birthday than they actually had. For instance, if a baby was born in the second week of June, she might be able to pass it off as being born in the first week of July if the child was small enough at birth. This could help promote the view that the child was bright and precocious as it grew up. I talked early and walked early but if my birth date was adjusted, I have no idea. The problem is, it puts that question in your head, you know? Was it part of a fable? A fairy tale written up to ensure you a better life with the people she sold you to in that land of milk and honey, 2000 miles away from Beale Street, the Mississippi River and Segregation?

Fact or Fiction?

• I was born on July 4th – maybe

• In Memphis, TN -– Apparently

• To a woman named Elizabeth Freeman – Partially False

• Father’s name, John Andrews – Completely False

I come by being an outlier, a gypsy, an eccentric woman quite naturally. I’ve always been on the fringe of the outside looking in. Being adopted can give you this perspective. The knowledge that you are not tethered to any particular tribe or people. That connective tissue is severed with the stroke of a pen and a file full of secrets closed and guarded under a court decree. Sometimes you have all you need in the form of an official document, name, birth date, or family history and you can glean enough truth to put together a patchwork quilt of sorts - a birthright story. For me, my birthright tale, hidden in the secret file, was shrouded in mystery and part of it still is to this day. I most likely will never know the answers to most of the puzzle. When I met my birth mother in 1996, I discovered I had two half sisters and a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins. I also discovered that there was going to be a lot that I was not going to discover; some of the puzzle pieces didn’t get put back into the box. I wondered if finding my birth family would answer the nature or nurture question. Maybe it’s a case by case thing. I do not have enough empirical evidence to evaluate the nature side of it. Other than to understand that the nature of being adopted in the first place and being adopted on the black-market in the second place, certainly speaks to how my earliest beginnings played a role in who I ended up being and also how I view myself. I can only honestly, reflect and review the impact that nurture had on my life. Even in this arena I am left with a void. A traveler with half a narrative. I can’t demonstrate an answer to which plays a greater role. In the end I don’t really think it matters all that much. I was raised with monkeys in the Mojave, hunting scorpions; I often had reptiles for pets. I came of age in the desert heat, with flash floods, cactus, tumbleweeds and mesquite. The nights so clear the stars could almost light your path. Vast acres of sand, pristine white, dotted with verbena edging up to rocky canyons where water falls spilled over into secluded pools hidden by ancient palms. Do I regret not knowing the other half of the story? Do I wonder if I’d stayed what role nature would have played in shaping my life? No, not really. I’m content with the accounting thus far.