The following is as verbatim a record of our conversation
after dinner tonight as I could reconstruct.
I've been here before, and had several hours of
(now discontinued for financial reasons) family therapy
to help me navigate it better
each time.
It begins with Sam.
_______________
I want my real mom.
I am your real mom.
No, I want my real mom.
I want her to be here now.
You mean your birth mother?
No, I mean, my real mom.
She's my everyday mom, not you.
It feels really hard to not have her here doesn't it?
Yes!
I don't want to hurt your feelings.
OK.
But, I want to live with her
now.
[As the wrecking ball heaves itself out of the debris
which was my heart, and gathers momentum
for the next hit, I breathe and remember that this is
all about him. I can do this. I can.]
That doesn't hurt my feelings, I say.
It makes me feel good inside that you are telling
Mommy what is in your heart.
I always want you to tell me what you need to.
You don't love me everyday.
Now
that is crazy talk. Of course I do.
Why do you think that?
If you loved me everyday you wouldn't yell at me.
I wish I wouldn't yell.
And I wish you would listen
when I ask you the first three times.
And, I wish I wasn't so tired.
But you're right. Sometimes I do yell.
I love you even when I am yelling.
[At this point Sam gets off the stool he is sitting on,
and climbs into my lap, putting his head underneath
my chin, and against my neck.]
I am looking up at the letter he gave me
that he wrote at school today.
It is taped to the wall, all alone looking regal.
The first letter he ever wrote:
I U. I L U Mom. Sam. (L=love he tells me).
Sam, I know that you have so many feelings in your heart
for her. I love her too.
You do?
Of course. Without her there would be no you,
and no you and me.
I wouldn't be a mommy, you wouldn't be you.
I love her more then I love you.
It may feel like that sometimes.
But the thing about love
is you can love more then one person at a time.
Like I love you and Marcel and her?
Yes.
Can you hold me in front of the Christmas tree now?
I need a cuddle.
Me too.
Marcel needs a cuddle too! he screams.
***
A little back story:
Last night Sam's birth mother texted me to ask
what Sam wanted for his birthday which is approaching.
I had told him she had asked.
I had asked him what he wanted me to suggest.
We brainstormed, and I wrote her back.
Then this evening two of my friends-both adopted
were over for dinner.
Sam knows their stories.
He wanted to know why I wasn't adopted too.
***
If these conversations are this hard at four, imagine fourteen.