[lenjan]

I joined Facebook a couple months ago. It's turned out to be a terrific way to keep in touch with my nieces and nephews, as well as former students. I found my first new, non-work friend in the area there, and some long-lost childhood friends as well, including one girl (yeah, she's over 40, but to me she's still the weird kid in my Girl Scout troop ;-)) I've known since 3rd grade but haven't seen since high school.

Devra and I have taken semi-different paths in life, although we still have a fair bit in common, and as we've reconnected we've chatted about kids and stuff (she has FIVE!! Never saw that one coming, either, LOL). I sent her some pictures of my son over the weekend and she said if I were comfortable with it, she would like to hear my story, so I told her.

I don't want to get into it here and many of you know it already anyway. It's just that the telling of even the bare-bones of the story has stirred up so much in me! I am ecstatic I have even the tiny part in his life that I have now, but I didn't realize how much I am still grieving not having gotten to watch him grow up. He is a wonderful young adult, with a charming sense of humor and a deep sense of gratitude for his blessings, and I love who he has become. I"m just feeling sorry for myself because I missed the path to getting there.

I didn't post this in Grief because I wanted to hear experiences others have had with stuff like Facebook and Myspace and running into old friends, etc. The older I get, the more I realize how important the people who know the most of your history are. The Internet has been a blessing that way for me, as almost none of my childhood friends remained in the place we grew up. I feel like it's dishonest not to talk about something that caused the better part of my trauma and mental health issues -- I just didn't expect it to hurt so much after all this time.

One more thing? Please don't tell me how fortunate I am. I KNOW that. I am eternally grateful that my son's adoptive mom decided to seek me out. But he is my only child and like it or not, not having raised him, although it was the right decision for him, hurts me.

Candy

[altonwoodsdrphil]

what you did by your decision to have and give up for adoption (if I'm understanding correctly) this child was a profound act of love. Your pain is based in your feeling that you missed out on being in his life. time for another loving decison...choosing to find peace by letting the negative go.Obviously your feelings are more complex than that but perhaps your answer is'nt...you'll difuse the negative by affirming the positive within yourself and confronting it head on. again,God Bless You for your loving choice!

[lenjan]

Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.

[SeptemberMorn]

Candy, I can immagine only part of your pain of not having seen your son grow up. My experience has been with some of my grandkids; the two boys my daughter had and the off and on relationship my DIL allows me to have with her three kids. The baby was born premature and I wasn't allowed to see him until he was a year old.

These may be "just" my grandkids, but IT HURTS, DAMMIT!! My daughter's oldest boy is 16. I haven't seen him since he was in kindergarten. He was a troubled, abused boy. What has he gone through since then? The baby was 18 months old and attached to my hip, even when his mother was in the room.

You know what I go through with my youngest son's kids. IT HURTS!!! But there's no way it can hurt as badly as having given up your own flesh and blood!

Sometimes the pain of not having spoken to my daughter in 10, not being in touch with her sons, and all the crap I have to go through with this DIL get's to be too much! It's no wonder you developed a mental illness from having given up your son! I know *I* couldn't have been that courageous! My kid and I would have probably starved and who knows what else!

Give yourself a hug. It's allowed. and tell yourself what a wonderful mother you really are! Then set your sights on seeing that gorgeous hunk of boy one of these days! Allow yourself that hope, Hon.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Candy}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

One for you and one for HIM.

[Perna]

I have two girlfriends from high school and we've kept in touch with each other all these years (we graduated in 1968). I'm the only one who lives in the vicinity still although one of the othes' parents are still alive (in their 90s) and she is an only child so comes to see/help them occasionally and we try to get together.

Recently our high school did some sort of site and the three of us joined. It's something like $9.95 a year and you have to pay that to see any of the lists. Well, saw a list of all the kids in my class for the first time in 40 years and that was weird. Has their married and maiden names for women, etc. Blast from the past. I'm in an odd situation because I moved away in 4th grade and then back again in 11th but I had 2 kindergartens in the area too so there's like 3 "sets" of overlapping memories/kids I am "related" to. When I went to my 30th high school reunion (with one of the three friends, all three of us want to go together to next year's 40th :-) I took my class pictures from 1st and 3rd grade and my second "best friend" when I was 5-8 was there and able to help me label the people in the pictures (she was in them too :-) It got really bizarre when she dragged me around and started introducing me to people I'd known when I was 6, LOL.

What was the biggest boon was, after going home from the reunion, I got out my high school year books and started looking at the kids from the 1st and 3rd grade pictures and then from the high school yearbooks to see if I "knew" them from high school. I felt so alone in high school and have such miserable memories but other things started occuring to me during this process and my life took on more cohesion.

Long story short :-) Yes, candybear, the getting "back" in touch with people from one's childhood, etc. has been very beneficial to me. One of my hobbies is genealogy and I already have contacted boatloads (bad pun) of distant relatives through researching the same ancestors, etc. so know about making connections that way and now I'm mending connections with older relatives and childhood friends, etc. I have a first cousin who "disappears" for 10-20 years at a time and she resurfaced (for good "we" think) last year; but that sort of thing is happening more frequently to me nowadays.