Follow-up to Feeling Strange...esp for Droile

[Moomin]

Hello to everyone who said they had found the last thread, Feeling Strange, useful but esp to Droile...

Droile - 1st an apology. You offered me the chance to discuss things with you personally and I didn't take you up on it. I hope I didn't offend you; I think I just panicked at the thought of taking these feelings that we express so openly and, more to the point, anonymously, onto a more personal level. I think that, for the moment, I feel better discussing things the way they are, and I truely hope I haven't offended you by saying this. Your comments more than anyone else's have helped me realise I'm not the only one who still feels very raw about bereavements past. I hope we can still "talk" openly and I hope the offer is still open if ever we feel the need to.

I spent the day with my god-daughter today, whose mum (my cousin who I adored) died last July. We spoke a lot about her mum and said how much we were missing her. I've decided against counselling at the moment despite having a very rough time in Feb and March. Things seem to be settling down now and they feel less "raw". How are the people who contributed to the previous thread coping with their situations? Droile - any more thoughts / developments about your dad and that video?

Thanks Moomin, I wasn't offended at all, I quite understand. I'm really glad you've started this thread actually, as I was trying to get round to deleting my more gelignitious posts on the other one. Someone has indicated that she will soon be getting the internet, and it would be just my luck, etc, etc. I'm glad we can talk too.
Funnily enough, I've decided against conselling too, for the moment, as it would take a very special counsellor to not get my back up.
I haven't had the video yet, but have managed to speak to my mum about the situation a little. I've asked her for everything she can remember (for the boys), so we shall see. My second son is the spitting image of my dad, albeit with different colouring. It is like watching a minature version of him and I think that has brought it home to me much more. We'll see what happens when the tape comes.
Thanks for asking.

Funny you should mention about likenesses. I noticed you were posting on the adoption thread a little while back. I may as well admit that I changed my names to "roots" for that thread and you'll know why... Anyway, my oldest friend (as in have known her all my life) visited this week, back home from New York. She is dd's godmother and it's also very important to me that she is the only one of my friends who knew my mum. She said that dd was very much starting to resemble me these days and she remembered photos of me aged about 2 from our family album that could really be dd, we're so alike. I was very touched that she remembered these photos and she also said that she thought my mum would have got a lot of pleasure from seeing a likeness between me and dd. I'm not even sure of my friend knows how much things like this mean. I was really chuffed.

I've just had another quick look at the adoption thread Moomin, and I see that we have even more in common than I thought. My granny brought me up as 'second mother' and when she died when I was 17, I had double misunderstandings from other people. Not only was she 'only' my granny, but she wasn't my 'bio-granny', so many people didn't understand that I had lost the person who brought me up from the age of 5. When I came back after her funeral, a girl at work even said 'I'm not going to say anything to you 'droile', because people die, and that's just all there is to it.'
I'm aghast at what that person said to you when your mum died, Moomin. She was your mum! It reminds me of some talk between teacher friends of mine who were discussing a particularly naughty little boy, aged 7, after the death of his adopted mother. He was playing up something chronic and one of them said to the other, 'how long are we supposed to feel sorry for him for?'

Words fail me really. She was your mum, end of story, and she meant just as much to you as she would if she'd given birth to you herself.

In a way that I can't properly articulate, I always feel even more sympathy for adopted children when their parents die, because they seem to have lost twice over.

But I've never felt that I "lost" my birth mum at all. And I can now attribute that to my wonderful parents, who made me feel so wanted and loved that it wasn't an issue that I was adopted; it was just a fact and part of a story I liked hearing about (the day they went to the home to "meet" me). And because I was so young (6 weeks) and I've known about my adoption as long as I can remember, I have honestly never felt any loss about this part of my life. Now I have dd, it has made me realise that I have no knowledge of medical background, etc, and I spose I would like to find out some of my "roots". Nurture, though, rather than nature, has definitely been behind making the person I am today.