What about a father?

I think it was probably at this point that I started to feel rather sorry for both Wyn and Sally. To this day, I still don’t understand why their reactions were quite so extreme; I can only assume that they had a lot of bitterness and anger inside them that needed to be released. Perhaps this has helped them to come to terms with their respective pasts and they can now move on too? If that were the case, then the distress I suffered would be worth it; for two people to be purged of any shame or stigma lurking in their memories. After all, Sally knew that she was born illegitimately, as her stepfather had legally adopted her upon his marriage to her mother when Sally was five years old. We all process information differently in our minds and therefore our reactions are diverse. Who knows what goes on inside another person’s head?

I think the most important realisation for me is that I don’t hate Wyn or hold any grudge against her. What would be the point of my having anger inside me when I have been so hurt by the anger of others? Of course I can’t forget what happened; the whole episode will be forever etched in my mind, but it need not be an unhappy memory. Perhaps the experience might have made me a nicer person? Or am I more tolerant of others’ grief and distress? I have by no means led a charmed life but I do have much to be thankful for and I don’t take anything or anyone for granted. However, Wyn does appear to think that this whole episode is hers, and hers exclusively. She doesn’t seem able to realise, or accept, that we have both been affected – equally – and therefore I am just as entitled as her to have thoughts, feelings and emotions. Wyn seems to want to blame me merely for existing yet obviously I had no choice in the matter, and this is precisely what I want my inner self to accept – that I should carry no blame.

Of course there is another person with a certain amount of involvement who I have only mentioned briefly in passing – my birth father. Not many adoptees have their birth father’s details on their original birth certificate; a baby’s father either had to be married to the baby’s mother in order to be named thereon, or otherwise accompany the mother to register the child in order to prove that he had accepted paternity. My birth certificate was no different to the norm, and there was merely a line through the ‘father’s details’ box. When there had been mention of my birth father in the past, I was told that there was no chance of him and my birth mother marrying, and so his family had sent him off to America to work in a bank. Indeed, this was exactly the information that was contained in my adoption records, but with a little more detail.