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My mother wears army boots
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A year later, I was working at an internship in downtown Chicago. I was walking to the el station when a man jumped out of the crowd walking in the opposite direction and snapped a photo of me. He was instantly absorbed by the crowd.

Also Today An introduction to this week's series By Jennifer Foote Sweeney My mother wears army boots She kicked butt for me and I want to thank her. By Lisa Zeidner The series Beyond Hearts and Flowers We devote a week to Mother's Day and the messages that don't fit on the cards.

Two weeks later, Mary called me at my internship. She had hired another detective to find me, convinced that I was sick or dead or in some sort of trouble. The detective had been to my apartment, had supposedly spoken with my roommates, had figured out where I worked and had taken pictures of me.

Mary had another reason to call this time. She repeated a convoluted story she had told me before about giving birth -- to me, theoretically. She said the doctors told her that the baby had a simian crease, a horizontal line across the palm that is common in children born with Down syndrome. I don't have the crease and that had always bothered her.

Now Mary wanted me to give blood for a DNA test so she could be sure that I wasn't switched at birth. I was so cynical about the whole mess that it sounded to me like another way for her to prove that I was her biological daughter. I was afraid that if I took the test and it proved that she was my birth mother, she would become even more forceful and scary. I would no longer have an excuse to keep her away from me.

I told Mary I wouldn't take the test, that I was angry about the detective she sent to spy on me. I really didn't care if I was switched at birth and my biological parents were floating around somewhere out there. For me, one biological parent -- this one, certainly -- was already more than I wanted in my life.

We've done this dance several times now. She called me when she read in the newspaper that I was getting married. She called me when she gave birth to a baby boy, wanting to know if I was interested in meeting my "half-brother." She called me on my 25th birthday. Each time, she would sob and tell me she missed me, she loved me, she absolutely had to call me, she hoped I understood.

She seemed so distraught, so obsessed and so demanding of my time and attention that it was just too overwhelming. Whenever I talked to her for too long or let her in on too much, she was back, full force, with cards, letters, photos and phone calls out of the blue.

I could have told her that I do feel grateful that she chose to have me, that she chose to give me up. I know she made a tremendous sacrifice -- she's obviously still suffering from it. But I knew that one simple admission might touch off a new, suffocating avalanche of attention and fixation.

When she called my husband and lied about who she was in order to talk to me (I had told him I didn't want to talk with her), I decided I'd had enough. I wrote her a letter telling her that I couldn't cope with her lack of respect for my privacy. I told her that her random weeping phone calls and endless letters were upsetting and disruptive.

I asked her to show me that she understood me by letting me go, by not contacting me, not even to respond to the letter. I told her that I didn't know if I would ever contact her again, and not to count on it.

That was five years ago. I haven't heard from her since.

Families are complicated, messy and primal. It takes years for children to fully embrace and understand all of the secret beauty and ugliness in their kin. The texture and rhythm of each family are so distinct that no matter how close or divided the family becomes over time, that primordial beat thumps through every sacred moment of a life. That thump is sweetness and bliss for me, and it consumes every need and every urge I have. My parents and I are so tightly bound to each other that I can't breathe without feeling their love within me.

Perhaps I am too selfish, too self-absorbed or too afraid to add another family to my life. Maybe things could have been better if it hadn't felt so forced, or if I had felt like she understood me better, including my need for privacy and safety. I never believed that she would hurt me, but having her repeatedly thrust herself into my life made me feel violated in some confusing, intangible way.

I know that some reunions work out. I have friends whose birth parents were able to pick up where they left off, and who never felt invaded or uneasy about the intimacy called for when adding a birth parent to their lives.

One friend found that his mother and his birth mother share the same name and look like sisters. He danced the first dance of his wedding with his mother and his birth mother, the three of them clinging to one another, heads pressed together.

But that type of harmony is rare, and it's almost never immediate. If it can occur at all, it's more often something that's built, through time and trust and hardship and endurance, the same way all lasting relationships are.

To believe that blood ties alone can bind a family goes beyond the cliché of blood being thicker than water to assume a miracle. Sure, it's possible that the long lost can be suddenly found and reclaimed in a hail of tears and kisses, but it's not something I'd count on, no matter how many times you've seen it on TV.
salon.com | May 8, 2000

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