This is the continuation of the diary posted yesterday, 3/21/05, "One Adopted Daughter's view of Adoption Part I"
here
It was November of 1945. My 9 year old brother and my 5 year old self were in a foster family in Salt Lake City, waiting and hoping to be adopted. We had met our prospective parents and spent whole days with them very regularly. They were nice people but they were different from "other mother" as I used to call her. You know I was on constant watch and guarding my every action and behavior to the best of my ability.
At this point, I wasn't particularly convinced that being adopted was the most important thing there was, but my brother sure was. I would absolutely do anything my brother said I should. He was my brother after all, and I knew that if I was with him I was going to be okay. So that was the goal, to convince these new people that they wanted to adopt us. Sometimes it was awful for me. Like I said, I kept making mistakes. As hard as I tried I couldn't always do everything exactly right and I didn't even always know what exactly right was. When we were asked if we wanted to go live with the Johnson's and be adopted, it takes a year, you know . . . even though I was not exactly sure how long a year was, we said yes, yes, yes. Yep, not too certain about how long a year was, but I understood this legal stuff about adoption. . .you had to be good for a long time so they could decide if they really wanted to keep you or not. Then you went before a judge and he told you if you were adopted with a lot of papers that had your new name on them. Actually, I thought the prospects were 3-2 against me being able to carry off my perfect act for a long time like a year. I was prepared that it might not work out. I hoped my brother wouldn't be too mad at me for not being able to be perfect all the time, I really tried hard.
I wonder these days, if anyone really fully understands how difficult it is for a 5 year old child to smother themselves totally and strive to be the perfect child. I know a lot of children attempt it. Sometimes that real person I was would just come roaring out of me without any ability at all for me to control her. She wasn't really bad, she was just adventurous, curious, and stubborn as hell. And boy howdy! she did not like to be told what to do or how to do it. She knew stuff, make no mistake about that, she knew stuff. I hope parents will tell their children they don't expect them to be perfect all the time, or even hint at it. They just need to try their best and then try again when they don't quite get it right. And it really is all right if they don't get it right. Don't ever tell a child you don't love them when they are misbehaving. They will remember the one or two times you said you didn't love them and they will cross out the hundreds of times you told them you did. Tell them you don't like them very much when they are acting out, but don't ever tell them you won't love them unless. . . .and that unless could be anything. Make no conditions on your love. Because real love has no conditions.
Cliff and LaRue Johnson were the courageous potential parents. Cliff was born in 1901 and LaRue in 1905. They were pretty serious, hard working, conservative Republican and very religious Mormon folks, a product of their times. Huston, we have a problem! I was born a Democrat, bleeding heart liberal, with an overly pronounced sense of justice and fairness, ecumenical in my religious belief, and absolutely no understanding of racism, gender bias or bigotry (never could figure that racist stuff out). Now, I don't know how you can be born this way and I am sure there are some highly educated folks out there that say you aren't, but if you believe in a God, I would say she has a hand in the story and she certainly has a weird sense of humor. There would come a day the sparks would fly, and you know it has to come. As an aside here, I think it might be more important to place liberal children with liberal parents than to worry about racial mixing. I'm just saying. . .some hurdles really are worrisome. I had already seen FDR drive by in a car when I was 3 years old in California. I was pretty sure he was the real deal, he waved at me as I was sitting on top of my father's shoulders.
Cliff was a very serious guy. But as the years went by, I learned he had been quite the dapper fella in his youth. He was raised in a small town in Wyoming. His parents owned the one hotel in town. So he grew up helping and cooking in the hotel, doing labor on neighbor's farms and loving the outdoors. He worked hard all of his life and he was the first in his family to graduate High School. The eldest of 5 children, he had two brothers and two sisters. Out of High School he worked on road crews for the State Highway Department and worked every job there was starting as a rod carrier. Eventually, through experience and self study he became a highway design engineer for the State Highway Dept in Salt Lake City. But in between those long spaced events, he formed his own orchestra. In the 20's and 30's dance orchestras and dance competitions were really big things. No, I mean really BIG. He and his sister, Norma, danced together and won a ton of prizes in those dance contests. I loved the pictures in the big scrap book growing up. The ones of him in his stylish tux and Norma all decked out in those silly flapper outfits were just like something out of the movies. There were also pictures of his orchestra, all handsome guys in their tuxedos. Dad played alto saxophone, clarinet and the drums and conducted the orchestra. Well, no not all at once. Just that he was a talented guy and could play those instruments. He and his orchestra, "Cliff Johnson and his Blue Birds". . .oh gee, it makes me giggle every time, snicker, snicker. . .traveled throughout southern Wyoming, southern Idaho and northern Utah playing their gigs and attracting the ladies. Dad was a chick magnet. Very handsome, dark wavy hair and a moustache. I never met my dad's mother, she died before I came on the scene. His father lived in Wyoming, but came to stay with us as he was dying of cancer when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I never got to know him much, he scared me, I think because he was grumpy and he was sick.
LaRue was the only girl in a family of 5 brothers. She had two older brothers and three younger. Her father and mother were something else. Grandpa was an erstwhile farmer (handsome dude too) who moved several times from Utah, to Nevada, to Idaho, always looking to make a big break through and become a success. Farming in those days was working your own farm, helping your neighbors on their farms and working at whatever odd jobs you could find during the off months. He was working on a road crew in Idaho at age 36 with a wife and 5 young children at home. They heated their meals over an open fire right in the tin can, and I do mean tin, not the type of cans we have these days. He got food poisoning which collected in his appendix and he died before he could be taken to a doctor when his appendix ruptured. Grandma was 32 years old. LaRue, being the ultra responsible person she always was began taking over as much of the household as she was able. When she graduated high school her two older brothers got married and left her in charge. She went to work for a well known shoe store in Salt Lake as their bookkeeper and office manager. She worked there 18 years. When she met dad and they fell in love, she made him wait 5 years to marry her so she could pay off grandma's house before she left home. I would be surprised if she ever spent a dime on herself.
So I never met mom's dad but oh, that mother of hers. I was convinced that she was not only the most beautiful woman I had ever seen with her all white hair and the bluest of blue eyes, but I was pretty sure she was an angel in disguise. And she had magic. She made me feel loved from the first moment I met her. She was something indeed! She did not indulge us, nor was she permissive, but she had that magic love thing. I still don't know what it was or how she did it, it just was.
Even though I somehow managed to break a wooden pull toy a floppy eared dog, you know the type that had a long string and as you pulled it the feet of the dog went round and round like it was walking, they still decided to adopt us. I thought breaking this toy might be the deal breaker for sure. We had a night that we sat in the living room with mom and dad where they asked us since we were getting a new last name, would we like to have a new first name too? Mom had a list of names for both of us that we could pick from. Somebody really famous said, "what's in a name?" I think old Will was right. Seemed like it would be fun to be able to pick your own name, something other kids never got to do. I was born Bonnie Bess, and my brother was Edward but we called him Eddy. Edward picked with astute reckoning and became Kent Eugene Johnson. I thought a connection to stars might be a good thing, so I picked Shirley Anne Johnson (Shirley Temple was still all the rage in those days, more famous than God). We each got a piggy bank, mom and dad too, and a whole handful of pennies. Every time we forgot and used the old names we had to go put a penny in the bank. Pretty smart these guys, and it worked quite fast. I think sometimes they called us by our old names just so they could go load up our piggy banks.
When we went to the court house to see the judge, my brother and I and mom and dad, it seemed like a very exciting day. Brother and I were full of it. There was no containing us. There didn't seem to be anyone much but our family and maybe a couple of other people in this big court room and we started running up and down between the benches and just pretty much acting like "hooligans" as my very embarrassed mother told us later. Crap. It was a good thing the judge went ahead and made us adopted anyway. I thought maybe he didn't know what hooligans were, I didn't either, but it must have been bad.
Our new mom and dad desperately wanted a family and they hadn't been able to have any children. Obviously they were desperate, they took two older children against the advice of all their friends, family and the family doctor. I don't think their dream family really turned out to be what they got, but damn it, they were very determined and they were not going to admit defeat no matter how hard it was. Some of the time we absolutely drove them crazy. You couldn't tell either one of us anything and you couldn't make us do anything either. Defiant to be sure.
During those early years, it just about killed my brother. He couldn't understand rules, he wouldn't abide by them and he lied and stole things all the time. I was still trying to be perfect enough that they wouldn't throw us out or take us back to the judge for a refund. But I could throw a world class screaming tantrum fit if I thought it was called for. Nobody going to tell me I HAD to do something if I didn't want to. We were more than a handful. Sometimes we were unbearably ill behaved. Dear God, what we put them through.
My mother did some amazingly wonderful things. She always read stories to us before bed at night. I mean real stories not the juvenile kid stuff like See Spot Run. She started reading the Wizard of Oz to us. . .and wow did we love that story. My brother took over the reading after awhile because he was a really good reader. Mom also had family stories. I'm not sure I realized at the time she was making them up. I mean they were real things that happened, she just made stories out of them. I loved these the best. My favorite was the story of how we came to live with them and be a family. It was about the man and the woman who loved children so much but never had any and that made them very sad because they had all this love they didn't know what to do with. Meantime, my brother and I were just so darned anxious to get down here on earth that we couldn't wait to be born to them like most children were so we were born to another family. When our other mother got sick she just couldn't take care of us no matter how hard she tried so she asked God and the angels to find us the right family to give us love and take good care of us. That was how we came to live with them and be adopted. Now, being adopted was something really special. Most kids didn't get to be adopted, they had to take the parents they were born to and just do the best they could. While we, WE got to pick our own parents and our parents got to pick us because they just loved us so much and had been waiting and waiting for us to come along. And we lived happily ever after. . .er. . .well, sort of. But when I was 7 or 8 years old and some of the neighborhood kids tried to tease me and make me feel bad because I was adopted, I was having none of it. Being adopted is better than being born to your family. I'm special because I got to pick my mom and dad and you didn't, so there! It made me feel incredibly powerful to know how special I was. What a beautiful, loving mother to have given me that.
There are stories too numerous to recount of the ensuing years that will have to wait for the book. The short version is when I was 7 mom became pregnant at age 42. When she told her doctor he laughed out loud at her and told her she was bonkers. "Now, LaRue, you know that's not possible." She insisted, so he ran the tests. The rabbit died. She was pregnant all right. What a family! Now we have miracles happening. The story of that amazing new brother of mine will have to wait too.
When I was ten, and after repeated unsuccessful attempts, my 14 year old brother Kent ran away from home for good. I was devastated. It was 6 long years before I knew what happened to him. I used to imagine he was lying by the side of the road somewhere, dead. It almost killed my mom and it broke her heart. She blamed herself for not being a good enough mother. Sure, I was adopted and yes, these people were good to me but when your own really truly brother runs off and leaves you. . .ahh crap, it just proves what you knew all along. You are just not worth keeping. You are just not ever going to stop having people drop you off and leave you and never come back. Reinforcements to the walls of protection went up stronger than ever. No one. No one ever again, ever was going to get in that heart of mine. And no I hadn't let the new parents in yet. I had only let that amazing grandmother in just a little bit, and she was magic, I knew she really loved me, but even there, I had to be careful. No, no one ever again ever. . . .
[It was interesting to remember this loss of my brother. No one ever indicated that they had any idea of the effect it had on me. Gee I was good at hiding my emotions. I really was! No one ever mentioned or asked if I was having a hard time with this. I just went on trying to be good enough to stay, now that my brother was gone I had to stay because where could I possibly go if he wasn't there to protect me and tell me all the secret things I needed to know.]
A continuing to part III tomorrow if you still want to take the journey.