Erasure
A Ghost's Story
This is not a horror story in the traditional sense, although I am still haunted by my own “death”, this touches the dark side of adoption - abuse.
Nine years ago, in a heated exchange, I stood up to my adoptive mother like a prosecuting attorney standing in front of a jury outlining her crimes of abuse including mental cruelty. It was then that I was erased from my adoptive mother and stepfather’s lives and are now dead to them. Over the years, my phone messages and text to both went unanswered and once again I found myself grieving the loss of a mother. I had forgiven her lies and she could not forgive my truth.
I had thought I had put a tremendous amount of effort on healing the deep wounds my adoptive mother had carved within my soul when I was just a child, only to realize that my words had flowed out of my mouth as though I had been using them as a daily mantra. I was not healed. The wounds were clearly still visceral. Plot twist: my adoptive mother isn’t just another adoptive parent; she is also my biological first cousin. We were related and that somehow made her behavior more confusing to me.
Fast-forward nine years later…
My 86-year-old stepfather died yesterday while floating with a pool noodle on a lake, he simply passed. I have been told that an autopsy will be performed today to determine his cause of death. My adoptive mother and two adult step-siblings left me in the dark regarding his passing, instead, I received a text from a friend who had read the horrible news on a FB local scanner site, and another message from a relative who had received the dreaded call of death - he shared with me that the immediate family had gathered by my mother’s side. I felt gutted by the news of my stepfather’s passing and even more so by the stark reminder that I, too, am “deceased”.
My stepfather’s death triggered a journey down memory lane, reaching into the dark spaces within my subconscious that I believed were on lockdown. A floodgate of raw pain stung my eyes as I recounted my life prior to being erased from the family picture. My thoughts traveled further back in time to the untimely death of my biological mother. My early childhood had also been erased in the adoption process. Lies told and my true identity stolen.
I carry childhood and adult trauma around like Jacob Marley carried chains, heavy and binding. Except, I did not forge each link in life, my burden was handcrafted by those who were supposed to love me but were too unhealed themselves to cope with the emotional and psychological needs of five-year-old me, their adopted child who arrived with significant trauma. Still, I shoulder a weighted load from their abuse as I walk in the present and it is time for release.
Your writing always reflects the perfect balance of substance and style.
There is no more powerful social unit than the family; all others (education, financial, governance, politics, religion) are derived from this fundamental construct.
How family shapes and influences our character offers that double-edged sword of a blessing and a curse.
It’s difficult to top Tolstoy in his opening sentence of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
In 1936, Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) became the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
During his life, O’Neill was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature four times. Yet A Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956) is considered his magnum opus. The play was written in the early 1940s, yet was not published until after he died.
The work is so powerful that O’Neill was still awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
The story deals with addiction, unfulfilled dreams, moral flaws, and the struggle of family relationships.
Yet O’Neill told his tale with the boldness, eloquence and unflinching honesty that is the gift of the Irish, regardless of how many miles and generations removed from the Emerald Island.
It is your fate to be a writer. We are lucky to experience your gift.
I’m new here, but already so glad to have subscribed. You walk a fine line between truth and resonance beautifully in this reflection. Some people never find the words—let alone the self-advocacy—to name the harms they’ve faced, especially from those who were supposed to protect and love us unconditionally. By sharing this, you not only stand resolute in your truth, but also offer others a light to see that they can, too.