carolannwright

Today is the first Saturday in July. The picture above is one of the views from my study over my side garden. It is beautiful if not a bit late and I never tire of looking out of my windows at the wonders of Mother Nature.

Saturday was for me a day to catch up on housework, plan the week a heads menus and later,cook a stir fry for myself and my husband. Some afternoons, when the weather permits, I sit and write in the garden, with my dogs at my feet and our ponies in the fields. A peaceful restful day after a sometimes hectic and also of late, worrying and upsetting week.

It is busier here now as my youngest daughter and her husband are here all weekend re building our holiday home, to live in when completed. My husband is helping and organizing the work but I am not yet involved. When it comes to choosing colours etc, I will chip in.

One of the things I looked forward to on a Saturday, was my weekly, sometimes bi-weekly chat to my brother Tony. When we lived closer, in Hampshire I visited and sometimes took him out as he is not able to drive now and doesn’t walk well. Because of distance, ill-health and commitments here,8 hours away, this is now not possible so our chats were important. ‘Family’ have stopped that now. How others, those who say they care about him, can stop calls to someone who has loved him all of his life, is beyond me. That is not loving someone.

So today this is one of the reasons for my sadness , the other being something I was sent, as an author, a chance to enter a letter to a competition. A letter to someone lost and/or estranged from you.I don’t enter writing competitions but sat and read many of the letters submitted and one was from a daughter to the mother who ‘left her in a hedge’ when she was a baby. I admit to reading this with some trepidation but read it through to the end. It was a beautiful letter, no blame, no recriminations, just a lot of confusion and non understanding. Lots of questions , not why’s; but had her Mum ever thought about her? Had she remembered birthdays etc? Did she wonder what she looked like at different stages of her life? etc. etc.

This letter stirred a lot for me. I wondered how the mum, if she ever could, would reply. What if she actually didn’t want her daughter? I find that hard to believe, I always think that circumstances must have been so, that her Mum had no or little choice. I found myself wishing they could meet, could answer each others questions because I know her mum would have so many.

How do I know? I sadly had a baby adopted many years ago. Not out of choice but because I had no choice. To have kept him would eventually,have meant losing my little girl of 3 and him, to Social Services as I couldn’t provide for them. Life was so different back then. You didn’t get any help as you do, thankfully today. I had a mother who showed me nothing but loathing and a ‘family’ who were controlled by her. So, no choice and it broke my heart.

For the first 5 years of his life, I wrote to the Adoption agency and sent cards on his birthday and at Christmas, sometimes they replied saying they would keep the everything and let him have it all when he was 18 if he asked. I continued to write until after receiving no replies I stopped when he was a little older.I now know that he was given nothing and so what I was told,was not true.

If this young lady’s mum ever read her letter or was able to talk to her daughter, she would, I am sure, tell her this. If,like me, a day doesn’t and never has, gone by without my thinking of him, her Mum would tell her that. She would say, that at every milestone that she would see in other people’s children; thoughts of her lost child would surface. She would tell this young woman, that often looking at her other child, or looking in the mirror, she would try to imagine what her child now looked like. How she wore her hair. What colours she liked. What was her favourite food. What music did she like. Every-time she heard the name, called to another child, that was her own baby’s name, she would rush to look and the wave of sadness and loss would envelop her. She would lose her baby all over again. Christmas’s and family gatherings, she would be thinking… if only things had been different.These are some of the things that hurt a mum who has lost a child to adoption. There are many more. I know.

I was fortunate enough to be reunited with my son when he was 22 years old. It as been rocky but we now have a loving relationship and one I treasure. I wish his older sister could be part of that but she isn’t at her own choice. I answered all of his questions over the past few years and he is as understanding as he can be. He bears me no ill will.

So I won’t be entering this completion but I will continue to write my book, already half done, which is already titled ‘Hello J”. One day he will read it.

I hope this young woman finds some answers. If not, I hope she continues to bear her birth mum no malice. She doesn’t know the whys and can only imagine.

So Saturdays were harder today for me but my future here is looking better. I have to respect my brother’s position, even though I know it was not what he wanted. I could ring him, I might ring him. I don’t know. I miss him and I know he will miss me, but this is how it is. I don’t like it but have to accept it.

My son may be visiting this year and then we can spend some quality time together. My youngest daughter will be living back here as she wants to and life will get better. I will make sure of that.

Thank you for reading this x

Hi. This is my very first blog as Carol Ann. I do write blogs under my author name but this is going to be my personal blog. It will be informative, sometimes emotive, sometimes serious and sometimes not.

Today I want to talk about FACEBOOK. The definition of this is: online social networking service.

Social networking is, as I understand it, a place where we can air our thoughts. Stay in touch with friends and family and make new friends. It is a place to share fun times, happy times and the sad times that we all at sometime, experience. I have used it as such a lot of late.If I have bored you, I apologise but that is what this page is for.

In this huge world, where families are often split because of distance, work, marriage etc. social media has become a huge comfort for millions around the world.

It is also a place where we can see what is happening in our neighboring countries and further afield. Yes, sometimes it shows us shocking images and we need to be selective to keep our own emotions safe from things that upset us. Facebook allows us to do this. If we don’t like something, we can choose, either not to read it or request such posts are deleted from our page. User friendly I think it’s called.

I believe that the Internet is a wonderful place, that social media is a useful tool for many. Families are not as they used to be. Some as I said, are spread around the globe. Some do not keep in touch for one reason or another. We may no longer have grandparents or parents close to us, the maiden aunt we all used to go to when in trouble or pain, no longer exists. Facebook, to many has become their confidante, their way of expressing their thoughts.Somewhere they can say anything they need to say. As a Psychotherapist, I see this as a useful tool.Using it in any of the aforesaid way, it is a good thing. It has become their friend. All good.

On a personal level, it has been more than that. It was place to contact my grandchildren, my other family, see their photos, hear what they were up to. But in my case all that changed. I was suddenly being told what I could write. I was receiving nasty comments on my posts, orders to remove stuff. Lies were being spread and so on. Facebook ceased being my friend but something I became afraid to switch on.

What Facebook shouldn’t be is the above. It should not be a platform for hatred, racism, rudeness and unsavoury posts. It should not be used to ‘get at ‘ someone; that should only and always be done face to face,not be made public, as my business was, and, I admit to fuelling it in desperation of keeping my family.

But it has a blocked button. Something that was being turned on and off at a whim by ‘family’, unblock to say nasty things and tell me what to do and then block again, so that I could not reply.So now that blocked button is in use at my action. I have blocked those intent on causing trouble and spoiling my time on social media. Now I am safe.

Since being a member of this ‘club’, I have been reunited with old school friends, people who knew my family, family members abroad who were not part of the anti Carol Ann campaign. I have seen photos of old schools, old places in Gosport where I lived and Portsmouth where my later years were sent. I have ‘met’ some wonderful people on here and intend to enjoy the rest of my time using this wonderful piece of modernity.The Gosport page especially,has brought back happy memories, of things I had forgotten in all the unhappy.

Yes all in all, having made myself safe, I want to say thank you Facebook. Thank you to every one who has taken the time to write , comment, send photos etc. Please keep them coming

In a way you have become part of my family as my readers on my author page have.

Long may it last.