Martin Bridgeman

In the recent few months I have met and held our first grandson. This smiling, happy child has captivated me in a way that I had expected, and, if I’m honest, has also captivated me in a way I had not expected. that’s down to dates and my own circumstances. I’ll come back to that. 

Some (okay, most) of my friends had expected me to hit the keyboard with a vengeance on his arrival, and I’ll admit I was tempted but my initial response was (rare) silence, not a little wonder and pure joy: speechless, breathless, joy. I’m sure many grandparents will say they did their best not to be like ‘that’, but you simply cannot help it. For most of us, a grandchild is a joy, a blessing, a link in a chain, if you will.

Then, the next grandparental challenge is to resist the temptation to bring this news into all communications. The upside is to hear the genuine happiness people will express to or for you. As recently as today, a friend shouted out the window to us as we took himself for a walk: “It suits you!” 

It does and did, and made a sort of sense to us.  

I’d read about the word ‘groody’ in an article about expectant grandparents. It’s a play on the word ‘broody’, which is often attributed to those longing for children, to hens or, more usually actors that look at you under their eyes, have dark intent, or are liable to cruelty. All in all, not exactly a compliment for the most part, but I can attest to its perfection to describe something in which I could have no part, if you follow me. Before he arrived, each kick and reaction to music or voices was an added bonus to us, adding to our barely concealed excitement. 

It is a visceral connection as a grandparent, at something of a remove, but no less real. All the worry of how the pregnancy would go evaporates and transforms into happy changes (and nappy changes) and new beginnings for everyone, all rolled out in a single moment. Every milestone along the way was stored: the status reports, ante natal classes, and then the eventual phone call early on the Sunday morning that will stay forever in the memory. And will be told and retold as part of family history.

If fate had intervened, he could have arrived on his great grandmother’s birthday, but, not unlike his father, he took a little more time and arrived exactly 33 1/3 years after his father, on a Sunday morning as the sun rose. I’m fully aware of the numerical significance, being the speed of a 12″ record.

I’ve seen the transformation of people in his company, holding him for the first time; not just in that expected way that most people have when they see newborns, but a certain smile, a calming, a breathless moment. Family, excited for another arrival, welcoming smiles and laughter were the order of the day. We resisted ‘pass the parcel’ as much as we could, but would still each harbour our thinly veiled greed to have another cuddle. Friends of ours would change visibly in his presence, perhaps watching his sleeping form in their arms, marvelling at the elegant fingers, smiling at the parents, happy to share the precious moments. 

I had known the longing for children myself, something I know my (adoptive) mother did her best to hide, but the sheer joy and love that leapt from her when she met her two grandchildren is something I will never forget. It took my breath away, figuratively and actually. We never did so-called ‘Hallmark’ moments, but she just mouthed the phrase ‘thank you’ to us in the ward, visible tears in her eyes as she met her first grandson. Luckily she missed the tears in mine, consumed as she was with her own deserved joy. Her joy was equalled on seeing her second, a granddaughter to complete the ‘gentleman’s family’ as she commented. 

He, our first, had been a ‘textbook’ delivery, according to the midwives, arriving in his own time, even falling sleep with his mother during labour. He arrived early on a Saturday morning in February, while the city slept. He had obligingly held on for a day longer than his expected delivery date, giving his father the time to play his first gig in ages. We had gotten home, gear packed away and had a night’s sleep of sorts before he made his presence felt early on the Friday morning. 

His sister, by comparison, was not straightforward in her arrival. A good bit later than the due date, she had, according to the obstetrician, the longest umbilical cord he had ever seen. It had wrapped itself around her neck and this labour almost ended in an emergency section. We discovered that the risk to her was severe, confirmed my a midwife who met us once day, smiled at herself and told us how lucky she had been after the event. However, in a way that almost defined her, she arrived on her own terms, blue to her brother’s pink, but ready to take her place in the world. 

Unfortunately, she developed colic, and her first 12 weeks were not at all easy on her, or us. Granny to the rescue. She had arrived down for Christmas in our then new house, and almost pushed us out of the way to sit her grandchildren on her knee. It’s worth mentioning that she was almost 84 years of age at the time, but was capable of looking to their needs, another remarkable trait of hers. 

Exactly 12 weeks to the day, her suggestion to try some solids for our colicky second child was the veritable miracle cure and a major turning point. Maisie had the gift, according to my cousins, as the family baby calmer, and so she proved to her granddaughter. She had the advantage of distance too, of course, and a fresh perspective on things. The little pot of yogurt was the very haute cuisine that sorted things, and we all carried on. 

Again, her love was obvious, and in this case, practical: solving a problem and sorting us all out. I still look on the pictures we took around that time, her smiling, proud face with her two grandchildren close, loved and smiling. And still I feel the odd tear well up. She had her precious time with them, she cared for them, had them sleep over, shared each of their first Christmases and left her mark on their father, his daughter in law and them. She had seen her wish for me come true. Of course, the exception was that we had no blood connection, but it was no less in my book, just palpable, human joy. Her grandchildren remember her, and swear they have vivid memories, and who am I to contradict them?

Maisie passed away less than a year later and made me promise, in her final weeks, to seek out all I could find about my birth mother. She made it clear that this was what needed to be done for my children, her grandchildren, not for me, nor her. She just knew that they were owed their heritage, story and all that would go with it. She anticipated their potential questions about who they looked like, and it gave us a way to explain things along the way. I promised her I would do that after the last Christmas visit and she reminded me and, again, made it clear that life was no longer just about her nor me. I reaffirmed my intentions, but deep down, there was the lingering feeling of a type of betrayal in particular to adoptive people. She recognised that but still insisted, and I will always thank her for it. 

It’s another example of how something that you take for granted is actually a very big deal when told to a third party. Some of us just get on with it, accept our adoption realities and make the best of it. Several people have expressed genuine and real surprise at how an adoptive mother could say what she said, insisting on her son finding out the truth of his birth.

Typing it out and seeing in print again, it is truly remarkable; it’s a testament to a woman who could put her natural feelings to one side, to secure and guarantee her grandchildren’s futures in a practical, loving way. 

So, to the dates…

I had always known from my documents that my birthday was July the 8th, a Saturday. However, in seeing my birth mother’s letters, she had written June 8th and that it was a Saturday. However, that did not tally with the calendar, nor any of the other paperwork. It struck me as very odd: how could she mistake the date? Years later, I can only assume that she was not in a good state of mind, so I can easily excuse the mistake.

In later years, when I received my full file, the June date appeared again, but this time on a medical form. Once again, the shudder: was my life a month out?

I had agreed to appear on a few radio programmes about the Mother and Baby Home Report in 2020. It had suggested that no money had changed hands. I had documentary evidence that it had in my case, and I had letters written by my mother mentioning money and her asking for additional time to pay it to the adoption agency. I was not the only one who found immediate fault with the document.

It was not the only inaccuracy in that report, of course, and some highly experienced and meticulous work has been done, essentially contradicting many of the findings.

I had sent redacted copies of the letters and “talked to Joe” on this. He remarked on my birth mother’s lovely handwriting, reading between the lines on the issue of money and the cold and matter of fact instructions my mother had to follow on a date in December, to bring me to the agency to be handed over. 

She was dispatched from the mother and baby home by bus, and had to get a taxi from Busarus to the Adoption Agency. Once again, the reaction of a third party to that fact hit me full force.

While I was on hold, I came across a medical form and the date of June 8th. It turned out this date referred to an ante-natal test on my mother, but all my paperwork was still July. I had no chance to think, and I engaged in the conversation on the specific points. I’ve listened back and I found it strange to hear my voice, considering what I had just ‘discovered’ before I wne ton national radio.

This ‘correct’ date has had two effects: firstly, it has debarred me from compensation due to a seemingly arbitrary cut off in the redress scheme, in what I can only describe as incomprehensible limit. Putting a limit on the sundering of the most primal human connection is plain wrong, and no amount of ‘mental reservation’ can negate the truth. And, like many others, I can clearly say that it’s not the money…

Secondly, it reminded me of meeting one of my cousins for the first time, and her reaction to my timescales.

She had wept openly when I mentioned that fact that I had been in the mother and baby home for almost 6 months. At the time we met, her youngest was around the same age and it must have been very hard to hear this on top of her shock at the revelation about her much loved aunt. Again, I had not considered this personally, for reasons I cannot fathom, and it took seeing this emotional reaction for me to realise the weight of it. I’m not convinced it’s entirely simple avoidance or denial on my part, but the truth of it is that it has lain heavily on me in one way or another since.

Fast forward to earlier tonight and our regular babysitting appointment. All went as well as could be expected: walks and cuddles, feeds, more walks, play, changes and plenty of laughter and squeals, all part of this growing child’s happy development and additions to the stories we will tell to and about each other.  

When we called to drop him back, the conversation turned to dates, and it occurred to me that he was almost six months old, but more importantly, that he had been born on the date that I had wondered about, but, more to the point, he was almost the same age as I was when I was taken from my mother and handed over to my adoptive parents and it’s almost to the month when that happened. 

At that moment, I had him in my arms, snuggling him, hearing him giggle and seeing him smiling in the reflection of the kitchen window, parents and grandparents sharing another moment for the memory bank. A visceral, physical, primal connection, bonded and linked. 

I said to myself, in that moment, that I would figuratively kill or be killed to be parted from him, that I’d be lost without him.

Then it hit me: viscerally, in a moment of awful realisation that we were bonded – in that moment – in a way of deepest sadness. This time, no one had to react for me to realise this. I kept that thought to myself and let the moment pass, valuing and letting our moment physical bond of laughter and love abide. Something had occurred, in an almost physical way, but the moment of joyful cuddles was a streak of powerful sunlight through the cloud that had formed just a moment previously.

I then came home and the words flowed like water: not exactly a flood, but a stream of love, loss, of hope and joy, an almost 6 month old baby’s life tying up another link in a chain, the fresh memory of his laughter washing away tightly held back tears of sadness and feelings of loss, but with his wee smile (and mine) pointing a way out, of moving on.

Here’s to our new journey.

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