week 4 - beginning 29th december

friday
Found myself having a fantasy about being with my birth family next Christmas. A short fantasy. It consists of me and my sister bursting into tears every time we see each other.

I’m at Lucy’s now. One of my favourite friends, I’ve known her 10 years. She is probably the least judgmental person I know. She makes friends with anyone and everyone. You can not help but feel loved when you are with her. She’s back from France with her daughter Lily, who is 6 and also one of my favourite friends. We’re at her parent’s house. I drove up this morning after being sick (too much chocolate, trifle and ice cream at Julie’s party). There’s a lot of love in their family. Lucy’s mum used to say that she’d adopt me. Feels like coming home, everyone is so pleased to see me.

saturday
I’m having a lovely time. It snowed heavily in the night and Lily came to wake me up with ice that she’s collected from the pond! Went for a walk. Showed Lily how to make angels in the snow. It was so quiet. Lucy’s parents were so supportive of her when she got pregnant by accident and didn’t want to be with the father. They adore Lily and she them. None of them could imagine their family without her.

Imagine what it must be like if you’re pregnant and no one says how wonderful. Instead of congratulations your news is received with stunned silence. How do you tell people close to you that there is precious new life growing inside you when you know they are going to react with anger? In my adoption papers it says “Mary told no one of her pregnancy and remained at school until two weeks before giving birth.” 

I believe that we all expected a celebration when we were born – it’s an evolutionary expectation and whether it’s met or not has a profound effect on our development.

sunday
Talked with Jane, one of Lucy’s friends who has a razor sharp wit and always visits here over Christmas, about what I’m doing, she wants the web address so she can follow my progress! I hadn’t thought about people I know reading this! We talked about women put in mental institutions for getting pregnant and then left there. She saw a TV program about it. That’s what they did in the 1940’s and 50’s. These women were discovered when the UK government started to close the big mental hospitals down and put people back into the community. When social workers were checking records they found that some of the older women who were in their 70’s had been committed for getting pregnant! Their babies were stolen away to be adopted and they were left to rot in the institution. Over 50 years some of them had been there.

monday
Came home. Checked my email. Had lots of messages mostly to do with work. Scanned through them quickly for any to do with and there it was the name Claire Clutton which Mark emails from (I guess he doesn’t have his own email address).

Hi Emma, I think I may have found your mother and Grandfather. I looked up Arnold W. Salter and came up with an address 7, Badminton Rd, Bognor Regis, Sussex. I then had a look for any Mary B Salters and it came up with one living at the same address. I’ll be mighty surprised if this isn’t them. There is also a Tom Morris in Bognor at 50, South Rd, Bognor Regis, Sussex. They are both ex-directory I’m afraid. I hope this info helps you. Good luck and let me know how you get on. Regards Mark.

My hands started tingling and shaking slightly. My god this is it. I asked the right question! I’m in a daze. It’s hard to focus on the screen, wonder if it’s what I ate for lunch. Now I’m thinking about that bar of chocolate I found when I unpacked the car today. Dear diary I think I know where my mother and grandfather live, and maybe even my father. Should I be writing birth mother and grandfather and father? I already have an adopted father and stepmother. Although I’ve always known I had a birth mother I suddenly feel like she is yet another mother. Like I’ve had a birth mother, my adopted mother who died and my stepmother and now I’ve found another one. I know it’s the same one as my birth mother – but until now she’s only existed in my mind and now I know her address. Someone impossible has become someone possible. Somehow that makes them two people. I think I’ve been affected by the news. (*Later - When Christopher read this he said its like I have a frozen icon of my mother, if I meet her I’ll be able to put my real mother in place of the icon and that will free up part of my psyche. I don’t quite know how it will free me up but I can sense that its true in some way I’ve yet to find out. (I’m interested to see how it manifests!)

Keep going back to look at the email. When I first read it part of me wanted to open the rest of my email and then file them away – like do something really mundane. Like not feel. That’s how I was a lot as a child kind of numb. This is an historic moment. I guess the hard stuff is about to start. Wonder how long it will take me to take the next step? Think about ringing my brother to ask about how he got the counsellor who contacted his mum. Realise I might cry when I talk to him (this feels difficult). And now the tears come and my teeth start chattering as if I’m freezing cold but I’m not. Read the email again. Just to check it's real. The name Claire Clutton will remain forever etched onto my brain.

I panic - perhaps I gave Mark the wrong name for my grandfather. Have a look on my parents’ marriage certificate and it is Arnold W. Salter.

I open Bob’s email with the Morris lists on again and look up all the Toms in Sussex. There isn’t one living at the same address as my mum and her father so they either got divorced or he’s dead. Maybe a heart attack. Lung cancer. I know people who have died in their fifties. If they’re divorced is my mother unhappy? Maybe my grandfather’s dying. Can’t help picturing a woman living a lonely life caring for the man who wouldn’t let her get married to my father and so keep her baby. Maybe she’s not still living there. Maybe it was just when they first split up. Maybe my father still lives in Brighton. Maybe she left Brighton to get away from it all. Maybe I don’t have very much information. 

The Tom Morris on the list who lives in the same village as my mother and grandfather has the wrong initial, C instead if A. Unless he changed his second name it’s not my dad. Perhaps it’s my brother. I’ll find out, if any of them will see me.

For some reason I go back to Bob’s email and look at the list of Mary B. Salters. There are 30 Mary’s, a lot less than the Toms. I suddenly realise with a slightly sick feeling that I didn’t take in the existence of this list, if I looked at it at all, and that there is only one Mary B. Salter on it (that’s the bit that gives me the sick feeling). I realise that I must have missed out this list altogether and that I could have known where my mum lived over two weeks ago. I’ve had the information on my computer all along.

I glance down from the computer and notice the number of the Population Census and Survey on the back of the envelope I keep my adoption papers in. They look after the UK official Adoption List where adoptees and birth families can register to show they would like to meet. I call it the ‘I want you to find me list’. I’ve been meaning to ring them to see if my mother put her name down. I’ve had the number for days. Before I have a chance to forget I pick the phone up and dial. No answer, not even a message machine – guess they’re not back from the holidays yet. Will have to wait ‘til next week. It would be amazing if she was on that list. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about whether she’ll see me or not.

Liz told me that her adopted friend tracked her mother down only to find out she had died the week before. Every day counts. I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.