Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in segments on Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw 

CHAPTER TWENTY- SEVEN: The Artist (continued from here)

“I have perfect pitch and wanted to be a jazz flutist,” I told him.

“You would have really loved him. His best friend played his favorite song by Segovia on the guitar while he was dying.” he said.

“What song was that?” I asked.

“The Girl With The Flaxen Hair by Debussy, have you heard of it?”

“I play the song on my flute along with Segovia from a tape. Segovia is my favorite classical musician. Isn’t that crazy that my grandfather and I loved the same artist and song? Leigh, I have always loved my grandfather Ernest. So he was the musician! I am a musician too and have been playing my flute with professional musicians as well and I love to dance! Oh my God! There is another genetic mirror. Tell me about Grandmother,” I asked.

“She was beautiful and so psychic. People back then thought she was a witch and weird so she hid her ability to know and see things,” he said.

“I think I inherited it,” I replied.

“Did you inherit her beautiful, big, green sexy cat eyes?”

Dr. Jane Aronson is a pediatrician specializing in international adoption medicine. This year she was one of the recipients of Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year awards. Dr. Aronson is also a wonderful, generous, modest and kind human being. I know this first hand because she was my daughter’s “adoption doc,” as I fondly referred to her. Every bit of information I received about my daughter Ella, beginning with the referral information and continuing with monthly reports, was sent to Jane for evaluation. I’ve kept all Jane's emails responding to the reports and my concerns. I worried about everything – this was my first baby who was not in my arms from birth; watching her being raised from a distance was difficult.

Not unlike a lot of babies born in Guatemala, Ella was very small at birth (5 pounds) and her head circumference was not even on the American growth charts. Another adoption doctor recommended to me by my adoption agency, suggested that I rethink accepting Ella’s referral because of her small head circumference. I was  skeptical and sought a second opinion. I had heard of Dr. Aronson in the intercountry adoption circles, and everyone spoke very highly of her. I contacted her, she reviewed the documents, and this was her response:

“I plotted the measurements and she [Ella] is on the standard American growth chart for all measurements, except the head circumference at birth. Either that was done incorrectly or she had the molding of the skull bones that is so common in newborns. Then the bones move away from one another and skull measurement is more valid.

The photos are precious."

Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in chapters twice a week – Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw 

CHAPTER TWENTY- SEVEN: The Artist (continued from here)

It seemed like my adoptive family history was repeating itself except it was now the year 2000 when Jerry came home one day to tell me we were bankrupt! I knew how my adoptive mother must have felt back in Kettering but it was worse for me as I was all of a sudden being forced to hock my diamond heirloom rings to pay the mortgage and had to find a job in order for us to survive until Jerry could figure out what to do.

A local art center hired me to teach drawing and painting. It wasn’t long until I convinced the owner to open a gallery so I could work on the weekends and sell art. Now that I knew Leigh and I were gifted artists I finally felt empowered and at home there. After a lifetime of abnormality and spinning like a top I was finally beginning to become grounded in reality.

The Saturday before the opening of the gallery after everyone was gone I took a box of student pastels and began to draw a picture of the old French quarter in New Orleans from an ad I found in a travel magazine. The primal energy poured out of me onto the paper like it was drawing itself. I was channeling again.

Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in chapters twice a week – Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Past Life (continued from here)

“Kids, our paternal surname Franke goes all the way back to the German tribe the Franks and ancient France. The family surname derived from the ethnic or regional name for someone from Franken, a region of Southwest Germany, so called from its early settlement by the Franks. The Franks were a member of the Germanic people who inhabited the lands around the river Rhine in Roman times,” I told Jim and Tim. “I guess we’re German. Maybe that’s why you drink so much beer,” Tim said and laughed out loud.

Arcane mysteries began to unfold as I delved deeper into the past. In the sixth century, Ancient France and the Franks, under their leader Clovis I, established a substantial empire in central Europe, which later developed into the so-called Holy Roman Empire. Their most famous leader was the Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) of the Merovingian Dynasty, who may have used The Spear of Destiny which lanced the side of Jesus, to win his 53 battles in the 7th century and now resides in the Habsburg Museum in Austria. The tribal name can be traced back to the Old High German word Frank that means courageous or free in spirit, and would have reflected the character of these people, my ancestors and me. Fantastic!

                       

I am posting this information today in hope that many of our readers will participate in the campaign to jolt UNICEF into helping the children in Guatemala whose adoptions have been stuck in limbo for almost 2 years.

Here is the email to be sent to Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF.

The goal is to “shut UNICEF down” on Tuesday, December 1st and make them know that many people are fighting for the rights of these children.

Thank you to Tracey L. Hoehn for taking this initiative.

Dear Ms. Veneman, aveneman@unicef.org

I am writing to you in support of the Guatemala 900 initiative to request timely due process and transparency for the children (some of whom are the legal children of US Citizens and possess US Visas) whose grandfathered adoption cases are still languishing in bureaucratic delay. We request your support and advocacy for the hundreds of children whose futures are at stake.