Rumors of war

“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.” ― Miller Williams

DON’T GIVE IN TO fear

I’m saddened every day by the number of people who feel they are alone. When depression strikes where do you turn? The sad part is most of us turn inward and that’s the dangerous part. If you’re not expressing your feelings then too quickly they become dark and if we can’t stop the flow of negativity it will build until it’s overwhelming. Depression isn’t a problem for most people and how stunned are we to learn that people die every day from it? Gia Allemand from the Bachelor took her own life. She was beautiful, fun, shy with a perfect smile, her smile hid her distress. And how good are we at hiding our distress? Some of us are very good.

I’ve told this story to my children but it serves to remind me of what fear can do if we let it: When I was in high school my friends and I foolishly played with the Ouija board. We thought it was a game but eventually it was freaking us out. Now I’m not going to say that we were talking to a spirit or some wandering entity but we were talking to something and it scared the crap out of me. One night I was asleep in my bed and I woke to find a black darkness spreading across my bedroom, I turned on the light but the light did no good, the darkness kept coming. I remember I woke screaming in the hallway with my Dad shaking me awake. I had awakened the whole house- my sister said it sounded like I was getting murdered. I’m sure she still remembers that night!

My mother knows me very well (no matter how well I think she doesn’t) she asked me what was wrong and it all came out. Talking it out in the bright light of my bedroom it sounded silly to me but my fear was very real. I’m not sure exactly what she said but the gist of it was, there is only one force on earth that feeds on fear and emotions like it (depression, anger and negativity) and that’s the Devil. He’ll use any weapon he can to turn you away from light. Don’t give in to fear, face them.

That lesson back then is the reason I remain resolute in my decision to fight my fears. Listening to that negative voice in your head telling you that no one will understand, no one will listen to you, no one will be there, no one can ever understand what you’re going through- you’re listening to the Devil and as long as he has your ear the Lord does not.

Families were put on this earth for one thing to support each other and when family isn’t there you have another one. Every parent out there knows that children are only home for a short period of time and then they face the world and unfortunately they don’t face the world with you beside them, they go out on their own so they must be prepared by giving them the absolute best chance for survival. Arm them with everything you can so they are strong against the world because we all know the world can be an Ugly place.  Look at what happened at the Navy Yard and murders and abductions that happen every day.  The Church is your other family. Any church in any city will listen if a stranger walks in and needs to pray. That’s what they are there for, for you in your time of need!

You are Not alone! Don’t give in to fear and doubt! You have angels all around you so stop listening to that voice. I’m here and I- will- listen!

What the past will reveal

My family history has always been a mystery to me. When asked about my medical history I can say ‘I don’t know, I’m adopted’ generally about twice a year. I’ve never known but now I do.  I have gotten more information on my lineage in the past few weeks than I could ever have imagined. My sisters have been supplying the information.

They have been shining a light on our mother’s history and leading me on a path back through time. Knowing who my family is has always been important to me but only recently has the past come to light. I found my family August 22^nd and I have a family tree that goes back hundreds of years. My poster board and markers haven’t even begun to crack the wealth of information my extended family can provide me on who I am.

Some people don’t need a family tree to tell them who they are. Some will never know it and until recently I was one of those people and I can tell you that it didn’t affect me much. I was confident I would never know and that part of my life would go unanswered. How wrong was I? I am working on my family tree but the Indians will know more. My sisters have informed me that the Quapaw have kept a very good genealogy record that one day soon I hope to be added to. I am related to the Quapaw by blood. My mother was half Indian and depending on who my father was will determine how much Indian blood I have.

I have sent away for my original birth certificate. Soon I will the last piece of information needed to become a member of the tribe and my children will be given the same opportunity.  You need two things to obtain membership: an original birth certificate and be able to trace your lineage by name to a full standing member. Meaning you have to be related by blood to someone who has a roll number. My mother has a roll number as did my grandmother.

My sisters do too and I love the tidbits of Indian everyday life I glean from our conversations. My sister Season tells me she is busy making moccasins and purses and was pleased to know that I loved fry bread (my Mom made fry bread a couple of times growing up, it is good).  Most of what I know about Indians is having known a couple of them throughout my life. It is respectful to give something when you first meet an elder either tobacco, sage, or sweet grass and you never know when you’ll meet an Indian. I met Samuel Holiday, one of the last Navajo Code Talkers, back in 2005. I met Marcy Tiger, Muscogee Creek Nation and his lovely wife, Sandy, last year when I arrived in Washington.

As I said you never know when you’ll meet one so I keep a stash of sweet grass with me at all times. I’m sure if anyone saw it, in the trunk of my car, they would think it was marijuana but no one has ever asked me yet, what the heck is that?!

I think history is as relevant as you want to make it. For instance, you might not want to dwell on history if you happen to uncover a serial killer, but medically it can be really revealing. You might find depression runs in the family. You might find schizophrenia there as well or diabetes or cancer. Things you might not have known were hereditary and therefore you should be watchful of.  My mother died of cancer. My Mom’s family has a history of breast cancer so each year my Mom, my sister and eventually my niece get preventative check-ups.  I will have to do that too.

Now not only do I have a medical history but I also have names for unknown faces for family living in and around Oklahoma. My ancestral tree resembles a Redwood! And guess what? It includes a Chief, the last traditional Chief of the Quapaw Nation. How cool is that?

What do you see in Silence?

It is done. I don’t think there are very many times in our lives when we knowingly change our fate. We make decisions willy-nilly often without thinking of the consequences. I think if we really thought about each decision we made before we made it we’d all be very predictable people, Lol.

I am not predictable. I wish I was….sometimes, but more often than not I am content to be just a little off.  If I was twenty years older the term might correctly be ‘eccentric’ but for now I prefer weird. I gripe so often of rigid, narrow-minded, inflexible people that I think I’ve become one without even knowing it.

I’m hard on people and I don’t meant to be. I pray a lot on my own weakness and I try to follow my mother’s advice, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. I find myself quiet A LOT.

I do try to fit in. I do lunch dates with friends and night at the movies, attend church- you know, all the usual stuff people usually do but then I withdraw. I like going to the movies alone. I don’t mind staying at home and skipping lunch and sometimes I do play hookie from church (btw, it never fails when I do skip church my Mom calls me – sheesh!)  When I was younger, I was never alone.  Is being alone so bad, so taboo that you absolutely need someone with you all the time in order to do things?

I found out something about myself recently, I don’t mind eating alone. I’ve been opposed to eating alone all my life. When you eat alone you look lonely and pathetic. Who wants to be that? But lately I’ve shed a new skin; I am officially one of those people. Why should I miss a good meal just because I don’t have anyone to join me? So Sunday afternoon after not going to church I went to Ruby Tuesday’s and ate alone. It felt good like I’d accomplished something I didn’t even know I was trying to achieve. Was it a test? I don’t know but I sat there and ate a very nice meal.

For me, my life has been a blur. I’ve been going non-stop for so many years that complete silence turned out to be a good thing. The silence put me in tune with the off things I needed to see in myself (and it’s an ongoing process. No one is perfect). Now I have no trouble sitting quietly reading, writing or just drinking a cup of coffee out on the balcony. Silence was a nice change of pace for me from the drama of the last few years.

But I guess I’m made for drama because I’ve done something again that will cause the waters to stir. I just mailed my court order to OKDHS to open my adoption records with the sole purpose of obtaining my original birth certificate. If I don’t do it, I’ll never know and I need to know everything now. It might shed some light on who my father is but for sure I need it to become a member of the Quapaw tribe.

Have you found yourself in the silence? or does the silence hold secrets even you don’t want to hear?

‘Silence might be a foreign land to you but sometimes it is good to leap into the unknown. Practice leaping’- Macrina Wiederkehr

Fear and the Well

It’s amazing to me how much fear holds us back. Fear of not fitting in, fear of being viewed as different, fear of rejection, fear of failure and fear that someone else’s opinion will change who you are. I think I lost my fear when my life hit the dirt.

Being in a well of depression is just that, it’s a well and you’re down there all alone (it feels like it). I think depression is the number one silent killer. No one knows you’re suffering until it’s too late. I also think that the things that define us are also the things that separate us from others– No one could understand what I’m going through so why bother trying to explain it or if they knew the ‘real me’ they wouldn’t like me anymore. I have every reason in the world why I don’t share my feelings with others but the truth is it’s an Excuse. I can keep punishing myself and keep trying to make that well my home. I was afraid to hope. I was afraid to try.

Some people don’t want to leave the well. They are content to be alone with their pain and misery and honestly don’t want people intruding on their very own, private space. They’ve grown comfortable in the gloom and walking topside no longer appeals to them. They look at others in resentment and view life in bitter jealousy. A very small part probably wishes they could leave but it’s overshadowed by the dark they’ve grown used to. You can’t help these people because they don’t want help. When I closed my eyes and said, Lead and I will follow they laughed because the very idea of shedding their despair is ridiculous. Their pain makes them who they are and that’s their biggest fear. That underneath the pain and sorrow, underneath the anger on why this happened to them in the first place, and underneath hurt they’re just like everybody else. No longer separated by their despair, no longer special, no longer different.

I am happy to leave the well. Sometimes I’m not sure I trust what I see– did something good really just happen to me? But each step I take I grow more confident. On my journey I lost everything but I found something too, I find ME.

I don’t have your answers the only answers I have are my own. Where ever you are– in twilight or down in that dark hole- I hope you have the courage to try. I hope when the sun burns away your last tears of anguish you’ll see what we’ve seen all along. We see you……and we like what we see!

The Countdown has begun

It has been nine days since I was reunited with my biological family! It started with a comment posted on my blog, this blog, and things are getting real. I told a friend of mine it has been the most amazing few days but the adjective I should have used was MIND BLOWING!

It hasn’t been without heartbreak. My mother, whom I dreamt about all my life, is gone. I’ll never look into her eyes, never say the words I’ve wanted to say all my life. Only an adopted child who was given away and unable to express their deepest most profound desire to stay can understand my feelings. Please keep me. Don’t let me go.

For every lost child still out there searching, keep going. Don’t give up. Even if you never find who you’re looking for, you’re here for a reason – Believe it!

My biological family is out there and they hold the key to another part of my life gone unexplored, my Indian side. I am at least a fourth Quapaw Indian. I may be more. Right now, we don’t know for sure who my father is but my sisters and I have decided to get DNA testing. My older sister, separated by only nine months, may be my whole sister. It really doesn’t matter what the DNA tests prove. We all know we have one thing in common, our mother.

Belonging has always been key with me. One of the most important bonds I’ve ever established was with my fellow soldiers in the Army. MP 1992-1997 changed my life. For all the years I underscored myself I knew I could be better.  It enabled me to see my potential.  And like the Army, I want to belong to the Quapaw tribe. They have always been a part of me because if I couldn’t have my biological family, I could have them. Sort of like a substitute family. However my letters to the Quapaw council went unanswered. I wrote them several letters throughout the years and I understand their silent response. They could not give me the answers I was seeking even if they knew my lineage. I harbor only a small grievance. Any kind of response would have been appreciated. Thank you for interest in becoming a member however you do not meet the requirements. Here’s a Quapaw pin and a tribal tattoo. Have a good day! I couldn’t make the requirement. I need my original birth certificate. I petitioned the courts once before, I decided to petition again.

The other day, I called OKDHS and inquired what I needed to open my adoption record. They need a court order and then it might not happen. So just to see what they would say, I called the country clerk’s office in the county where I was born and told them what I wanted. They took my information, didn’t ask a lot of questions and said someone would call me back. I didn’t expect a phone call. I for sure didn’t expect the letter I got in the mail today.

The Comanche County Courthouse mailed my a court order to open my adoption records. How astounding is that?!

So the countdown has begun. The doorway to my heritage is in sight. Let’s see if I can open that door!

Making that Connection

I’ve been busy reading emails and looking at the pictures my sisters have been sharing with me. It’s amazing to see their faces and compare the similarities in our features. You have no idea what that means to me. Being raised in a family where we all look different reinforced all those doubts I had about not belonging. When I was younger I was always searching and I think my mother feared I would never find inner peace.

Talking to them is even more enlightening because our thought patterns are also similar which is astounding because if you read any of my blogs you’d see my thoughts are pretty wild. I think that might be why I haven’t found a man. No one speaks Deborah. Being my friend is also a challenge. Which is why I don’t have very many. Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of friends but only a close few I share any details of my private life with.

These feelings I talk about (not belonging, feeling unworthy, unwanted) are feelings I had when I was younger. I don’t want anyone to think I still feel these things because I don’t but the illogical, implausible things we fear as children do carry over into adulthood but now I am old enough and wise enough to recognize them for what they are; childhood fears.

I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve had counseling regarding these feelings and that’s where I learned that adopted children have a hard time making connections. I never knew that. I knew that people passed in and out of my life without any real strife or concern but I didn’t realize there was a reason. The explanation was so simple but I never made the connection. It’s like trying to find your shoes in the dark. You’re scrounging getting frustrated and angry and then someone turns on the light- ah! Once I knew I made every effort to re-establish friendship and relationships with those closest to me. My real concern was when I had children. Would I connect with them?

I had no reason to worry because if you see my children, they look just like me. They might have my ex-husband’s coloring but they have my features and that bounds us in a very special way I never had before until now.  In these women in my life, my newfound sisters, I see the similarities in our eyes, the shape of our faces, the curve of their smiles, and in each of us I see our mother. With Season, Jackie, Tracy and LeAnn, I don’t have to make a connection, as a person on the outside trying to get in, I’m connected by blood.

Two days Ago

For those of you who read my blog, you know I started it a week or so ago in the hopes of finding my biological family. I was given up as an infant and my records have remained sealed besides my best effort to open them. I had given up hope that I would ever find them but Wednesday afternoon I received a comment on my blog that literally said, I think you’re our sister. Please contact us!

My new sister called me the missing piece of the puzzle and she has no idea how accurate a description she gave me. Not only do I fit into her puzzle as the last remaining family member our mother gave up for adoption but they, my entire family, are the missing piece in my life. It overwhelms me beyond words and I’ve been speechless for 2 days!

Whoever it was that contacted my family, I will forever be in your debt. If you need anything, please contact me.

Sadly, the one person I did hope to reconnect with is no longer living. My mother died last year. A part of me is shattered but another part is so very happy that I will know her and see her in the sisters I have found. Five of us! It still makes me cry and I wish I could see them to hug them so at last I will know they truly do exist. I have had them in my mind and in my heart for years and one day I hope to have them in my arms.

Two days ago I was broken, today I am whole!

On the bus

I’m an observer. I recently read a post online that said we observers are called “Noticers”. The blogger called us beautiful gifts to a frenzied world. I’m not to sure about that but each morning I get on the bus I notice the people around me.

First, my insane mind immediately attempts to pick out the leaders on the bus. Who did I think would step up and take action if the bus was suddenly attacked by terrorists. The movie “Speed” comes to mind and I know I would snatch the wheel and try to keep us going. Hopefully, the police send Keanu Reeves or the whole thing is just not worth it! (I don’t know why my mind goes to the worst case scenario, it just does.)

Secondly, I wonder where each of us on the bus are going.

Where was the  man to my left going with his thick, brown leather watch, his crew cut, brown glasses and too serious eyes? He had an incessant need to pop the gum he was chewing. He got dirty looks from the woman riding beside him.

Or the blind woman. She rode at the front and talked nonstop to her partner. They knew each other, he helped her on and off the bus. I’ve sat by them a time or two and she talks about her work. I think they work together. While she talks she moves her head, tipped up and back, true Stevie Wonder style and smiles while she talks. She has a great smile. Her partner sits stoically listening, interjecting at times, his back rigid and his briefcase in his lap. She talks with her tennis shoes barely touching the ground.

This morning at the traffic light there was a man on the sidewalk. For a minute I thought was talking to the bus driver. He was looking toward us, nodded, then waved his hand. He smiled, waved again and turned to the left. He had something in his hand, two little boxes, the size of a box of Dominos or cards. Maybe they were Dominos. He set the box down, stepped around it, stopped and bowed. I realized then this man wasn’t quite right. A quick glance at the big mirror above the bus driver’s head confirmed he was not conversing with the man on the street.

He didn’t look homeless, other than the two little boxes, he didn’t carry any bags. He wore tan shorts and a button down shirt. He looked unkempt. Just then he set one of the boxes down on the sidewalk and jumped into the grass, like the walkway was a river. He hunkered down sitting on his feet with his knees facing forward and stared at his box. What was he thinking? What was he doing? He stood up made a left turn and bowed again.

The light changed colors and we started to move but I kept my eyes on the box. My curiosity was in overdrive. What could be in the box? But we turned the corner and he was out of sight, I would never know. So I did what I normally do in those situations, I invented an ending to his story.

Like in the movie “Cast Away”, at the end Tom Hanks stands at the crossroads, what ends up happening? They leave it up to you. In my mind, he goes back to the artist and tells her his story and they end up falling in love. He definitely deserved love, pining for a woman who loved him but could never be with him so I thought my ending was fitting.

The man on the street was obviously lost. He inadvertently slipped out of the care unit and was wondering around with the only two things he could take from the psychiatric ward, two boxes of Dominos. An orderly, driving passed on his way to hospital, recognizes Phil, the unkempt man with the chia-pet hair in tan pants. He pulls over and drives the confused man back to the hospital.

Feeling better, I go back to noticing the people around me and no one notices me, the crazy lady in grey dress pants and the silk blouse lost in her thoughts. Where am I going? Who really knows. Aren’t we all a little crazy dealing with life and sidestepping the issues that make us who we are? I think we are.

The only thing is we’re not out on the sidewalk, we’re on the bus. The crazy bus. Lol

Alone by Choice?

All that time growing up, I ask myself now, was I really alone or did it just feel like it? I learned early on not everyone understands feelings. Some people don’t have them, some don’t dwell on them and as I told my daughter, we are a feeling family.  I think I just had too many feelings and people were uncomfortable with that so I kept everything inside. I was a typical teenager but no one really knew me, the real me. The real me was inside my head.

I love graphic designers. I love typing in a particular word and see what pictures come up on Google. Like that little robot box with this blog. I don’t know who created him but he is adorable. I had to use him. I think most of us feel like that little robot. He’s completely out-of-place and very small. I felt that way a lot.

I can honestly say I wasn’t one of the popular kids in high school. I was liked by everyone but never part of the ‘IN’ group. Let’s just say, if they threw a party, I wasn’t invited. One a side note, high school is a fraction of our lives. A fraction of a fraction even. We live to 80 or 90 years old and high school was only 4 years of our life! I’m surprised how many people think about high school and those years together. I rarely think of it. Out of my friends today I only have one from my high school I still keep in touch with.  I have plenty on Facebook but we never talk so I suppose that doesn’t count.

Anyway, trying to handle my feelings back then, I wrote a lot. I still have all those hand-written pages and a permanent callous on my right third finger. I remembering writing so much my hand cramped. I had a really great poem I wrote about my biological mother. I think my mother still has it somewhere. But it was about me holding my anger against this invisible person in my life and how the years went by with me being too stubborn to look for her and when I finally found her, she had passed away. It was just a poem but now as I think about it, it seems foreboding. I hope she’s not dead and I started writing this daily journal, partly, to determine why I still don’t try to find her.

I’m not mad at my mother. After getting that letter from the social worker I understood her frame of mind and could empathize with her reasoning for giving me up. She not only gave me up but also my two older sisters but here’s the catch, the paperwork states they were “placed for adoption with friends”.  She said she didn’t regret that too much because she knew where the children were. What about me?

I Googled my mother’s name, once I had it, and found one Geneva Ponder, in Jefferson City, Missouri. Her birth date is 23 December 1949. She gave birth to me in Oklahoma in 1970. The paperwork said she was “very sure of her decision to place her baby up for adoption. She hoped to keep the situation as confidential as possible and was admitted to the hospital under an alias.”

That might explain her corrected name on the adoption records. Did she give the name Janie Burgy or was that something the county clerk made up? I joke but I understand their job. They have to keep the truth sequestered, so to speak, and then they have to create the alias that eventually becomes the person. My real name, whether baby Burgy or baby Ponder, is locked up in a vault. They created an alias for me, Jody Douglas, when I was in foster care those first few weeks. My name today was decided on and changed when I was adopted.

My Mom and Dad only had my adoption record. That’s all the information they had. My Mom always told me that “Jody Douglas” was just a temporary name, something for people to call me while I was in transition. We were both surprised to find out that the courts had to legally change my name from Jody Douglas to Deborah Sills and then later corrected Jody Douglas to Jody Ponder. Both those documents came back to me from the judge along with a better copy of my adoption record. The one I had mailed in was a photocopy and stapled in pieces.

So why don’t I find her?

My desire to find her is like my desire to write. It’s only during the low periods of my life that I find myself writing a lot. Pain, heartbreak, depression, anger spur me to unload on paper but when I’m feeling good the desire to write gets less and less.  It’s only during the low periods of my life that I really want to find her. I think it’s because she offers a way out. A way out of my life. Finding her and establishing a relationship with her will establish a relationship with her family and her extended family, i.e. the Indians. Her mother is a member of the Quapaw tribe (or at least, that’s what the social worker wrote down – remember he/she might have been drunk too). Whether complete fabrication or not, I have to believe it because it’s in my official documentation. I have no choice. So finding her will find my heritage.

I wonder, during my low periods, what my life would be like if I found her. Would she accept a relationship with me or view me as something that didn’t remain confidential? Will I remind her of a man she was “too in love with” and reject me again? or will she want me in her life? Those of you who think adoption is just a simple thing are so wrong. If you think its simple you weren’t adopted. You have no idea how much these unanswered questions bother us and its my fear of the unknown that I don’t act.

A friend of mine found his mother. I don’t remember the details but he’d been adopted too and one day his mother found him. Did it turn out good or bad? I’m not really sure. At first good, because he got his questions answered but then bad because she didn’t act like the mother he thought she would. She seemed a little unenthusiastic about having him in her life. They were reunited but it was….disappointing for him. I don’t know I can’t speak for him.

But the situation is so complicated and putting yourself out there to be hurt again and rejected again, well, it takes a brave person, a strong person and I don’t know for sure if I’m that strong.