The stork didn't deliver me and neither did mum....

In my mother's day the older generation believed that if one could not give birth then they should adopt a child and because of the goodness of taking on someone else's unwanted child ,blessings would fall upon the family so that they would then conceive a child of their own.

Perhaps my parents thought the same would happen to them.. unfortunately after they adopted me.. they never had any other babies. so I guess I have been an exception to folk lore rules!


I remember asking mum once where I came from and the standard answer was given.. from the dustbin.( parents were not enlightened to sexual education at the time.).. On better days I was conceived by fairies and found by a lake, Angels brought me wrapped up in a blanket and .. ah yah , you just were .. no need to ask so many questions!


Before I was 7 I knew my cousins were adopted. My mother told me. She would be stirring a pot of kaya over the charcoal stove and she would say " Your grandmother saw that the family couldn't afford to feed another baby so she took so and so and promised to look after her and educate her.." " Yah they couldn't have a baby so they adopted your cousin.." She told me about everyone's life connections except mine.


I learnt I was adopted only as I was going to seal my mum's ashes 40 odd years later. Why did I ask such a question? I honestly cant say.. I asked because in my mother's generation there were so many versions of the truth and as they evolved they took on the wispy look of fairy tales . Things didn't quite add up and maybe because she wasn't alive it seemed ok to ask such an irreverent question..Am I really her daughter ?


So I was'nt from the dustbin. There was no stork with a huge beak.. I just was..but I was loved. I was cherished to the point of obsession. I was never told where I came from because I think she came to believe I really was hers. Has it made a difference to me ? Yes. Because now I understand her better . Her need to hide this from me and worrying all those years that if I ever found out I may have chosen to look for my birth mother. Her obsessiveness of wanting to keep me for herself and never let go... but she need'nt have worried that much.. she was all I knew of a mother and I was'nt looking for anyone else.