Martin Bridgeman

Like everyone I had a mother. Trouble was we were only together for 6 months. I then went to another mother who loved me deeply as her own child. All seemingly very sad in a way (and it’s not my intention to look for sympathy) just an interesting contrast that I experienced. I had and have no conscious memories of my birth mother apart from the inherent memory of her voice, the language, the lilt and timbre that manifested itself many years later. More on that later…

My adoptive mother, Maisie, was a bit older than my peers’ mothers and while it was unusual it was not an issue for me. In some ways I gained an extra layer of wisdom from her. She was, remarkably by today’s views, 50 years of age when she and her husband Mick adopted me. They’d been through several heartbreaks so they chose the role of adoption in their quest for family. Hard to imagine but, as we’ve seen and heard, adoption was another dark secret in this state and we have heard of many horrors for those in the complex web of birth mother, child, adoptive parent and in the case of Ireland, the pernicious influence of ‘official’ Ireland. It’s still hard to comprehend the level of secrets and lies that lay and still lie under adoption. In my case and experience of the early stages of adoption I was blessed with two fine parents who did their level best and have, I hope, left their tender mark and influences on me. Both instilled a sense of hard work and fair play, of fairness and respect. Mick passed away when I was 13 and undoubtedly it had an effect on me, but Maisie kept my body and soul together while we figured out our new reality. Did we fight? Of course and I would be lying to say that there weren’t silences, begrudging acceptance but always reconciliations; we had our moments and I imagine I was the instigator of many’s a row. That said, I never remember uttering the awful phrase “You’re not my real mother” as had happened with others. We had each other to take on the world and we both knew that bond was stronger than any adolescent strop or poor life choice.

Adoption was something I never really considered or wondered about in any real way for many years and that’s for another discussion but one thing was absolutely clear; I was loved by a mother who took me in to her heart and has left her loving mark on me and while it’s deeply sad on a day like this I do have the many happy moments to recall and will always be delighted to know that she saw me married (she was an Irish mammy don’t forget) and that she met her grandchildren. They knew her love in their infant way and she was as proud as anyone could possibly be of them and I of her. She cared for them, loved them, soothed them, calmed colicky babies and gave of her wisdom with care too.

When I told her that we were expecting our first child she took me aside and told me as directly as she was capable of (the word ‘direct’ could have been coined for Maisie) that I needed to sort myself out and look into my adoption. She was very clear that I needed to do this to give our children a sense of their history and to have some sense of things like medical histories. I was pretty speechless (a state I rarely find myself in) but she was clear and happy as could be to ensure that I did this. It was one of a number of things she did to ‘clear things up’ as we entered what was to be her final years. She wanted me to do this and I am still lost in admiration for how she handled it. Not every woman could have handled the complex emotions involved. Maisie didn’t do ‘Hallmark’ moments but I knew where I stood as regards her love and care for me. It was fearless, maybe thankless at times (on my part) but always deep and clear; we didn’t tell each other enough perhaps but we both knew we were connected in that special mother-son bond and we both reckoned that was good enough. We just didn’t ‘make a meal’ out of it, as she once said.

Much as I wanted to defer to her clear wishes, part of me still had the reticence that the adopted often have when making contact or even delving in to the truth of things. I left it and we took our final time together with as much contact with her grandchildren as we could manage. In her final weeks we discussed it again and she made me promise again that I would do as she had asked. I still marvel at the complexity of what she was discussing with me but was floored at her generosity of spirit and understanding. Once you become a parent yourself relationships with your parents shift too, but being in an adoption situation there are extra layers sometimes.

My reunion never happened for reasons I can’t discuss because I don’t know all the facts. There are still secrets and lies to unpick and perhaps I can never fully understand why we never met again. I don’t dwell on them because they were are really out of my control…and life has taken the one person who can answer all the questions.

I fast forward to 2015 (and the discovery of a sister in 1999 but sin scéal eile) to a connection with my by now deceased birth mother’s family. Lovely people; warm, welcoming and not a little shocked. They found out about my sister first, not in the way that either of us wanted. Despite that imperfect start we have remained close to our birth mother’s family and in contact in as normal way as you would with family but the shock remains real. My birth mother, had her secrets and lies deeply buried. She was a strong, independent woman, had never married and lived for many years in England. She came home to her home place in latter years to care for relatives but never disclosed the fact that she had given two children up for adoption to a living soul to the best of our knowledge. As contact was no longer possible, I have seen letters that she wrote to the then adoption agency during her ‘confinement’ in Ireland and they are hard going. This was a woman struggling with the most awful dilemma and for a second time, her faith challenged to the extreme, her family and upbringing sundered and her situation totally determined by a society that treated women in her circumstance as something to be hidden away and ‘arrangements’ made. I found out some time back that I might have been ‘sold’ to wealthy Americans, a commonplace commercial arrangement at the time and common at the place where I was born. My birth mother was told to ‘put it behind you’, to forget all about it, become not an inconvenient truth for society and slip back in to that society to bury the most basic of connections, not once but twice.

As I said we never met. Her picture is on my wall and there are some family traits that my sister and daughter share but my only connection is visceral. I heard her voice as a child in the womb and spent 6 months in a mother and baby home with her; her accent is strangely distinctive and familiar; she was a native Irish speaker which may explain my familiarity with the cadences of the language and seeming ease with in later years. She held me when she could, cared for me as a baby and then, in circumstances that have never been explained, gave me away or saw me taken away; her second child, gone. Arrangements made as best as could be perhaps, but at a cost to us both.

That’s my only connection really; all other information I have is third hand and subject to the interpretation of the tellers, none of whom it seems knew anything about her situation and are still in shock in ways about the truth of things. Still, knowing what I know about the country she was raised in and its attitudes and judgemental nature back then, I can’t be but lost in admiration in a way for her attempts to see the right thing done, to get the best out of the situation. Her choices were limited at that time and she navigated her way through a maze of complexity and complex emotions. I know she didn’t enjoy good mental health in her final years but knowing what we know now, perhaps that was almost inevitable. I have struggled with these facts over the years but I can look in my heart and find no hate there for her.

So there you have it, a tale of two mothers, three if you count the mother of my children who still inspires me and loves our children with a depth that I can’t sometimes fathom. They all did and do their best for their children, in very different circumstances. All I know is that I am blessed to have been part of their lives.

As I write this I look at two pictures of my birth mother and adoptive mother as I do every day and hear my children in the kitchen speaking with their mother, marking the day, celebrating the bond. It can’t be broken…Cherish it