Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
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My story may be common but for me it was a life changing moment that has effected me for 30 years. I write in hopes of sharing compassion, pain and most of all to be just a little closer to finding the missing link to my heart.
Imagine the year, 1972. The war causing protest, all my male friends involved in the draft and the ones that were not chosen volunteered, most never to return. I was a girl born and raised in a Catholic school, father full blooded Italian very strict and very proud. We were a large family with many aunts, uncle and cousins, all in each others business, very close and all around the same age. Going through our teenage years exploring the freedom of self expression was not uncommon because it was our generation that molding the world. Times were so new to this generation but for my family we remained in a bubble closed off from excepting any of these unspeakable changes.
At age 15, I was given the freedom to hang out at the end of the street which we called "the wall." My brother just a few years older than myself had the responsibility to watch over me because the "gang" was made up of approximately 30 kids within the neighborhood of Collinwood (Cleveland) and they were in high school compared to me being in Jr. high. The world had gone mad. Racial riots in the neighborhood and at school causing alarm with my father to work another job and pull his family away from the lower class housing neighborhoods and fleeing into the suburbs, but it did not come quick enough. We were far from hoodlums but more typical teenagers, racing cars down Euclid Ave., going to the Manners Big Boy car hops on a Friday night following the school dances that everyone attended. It was the age of the innocence.
This is how I met Jerry. He was a boy three years older than myself with the reputation of trouble following him. I was proud to have his attention and it was no time later that we would see each other without others knowing about it and especially my brother. I was warned to stay away but it was the first time in my life that my heart felt something I had not known. We became boyfriend and girlfriend and I had my first kiss. Every night after supper, I could not hurry quick enough to finish my chores and rush out of the house to sit on the concrete wall located at the dead end of my street. I wanted to fit in and not just be Mike's baby sister so I became daring. My first beer, my first car race, my first cigarette and my first experience with pot. I thought it did not get any cooler than that!
My attitude changed along with my looks. I went from this young innocent little girl into a "hippie chick" with my hair growing among my shoulders, the tie-dye clothes and hot pants and go-go boots became my wardrobe. Sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll and I fell in love with Jerry.
I was too young to work but baby-sat instead. Jerry would come to visit me during those times so we could be alone. I had no clue what sex was because in my household it was not spoken. He slowly took me through the "bases" and showed me how to please a man. This only led to more and within months I became pregnant. It was two months that past before I felt a quiver in my stomach and as a naive girl, I did not understand. I asked Jerry to touch my belly and he felt the movement and knew what had happened. He held me in his arms for comfort but deep inside he had panic within.
A short time later, Jerry was no where to be found. Some kids in the neighborhood stated he suddenly moved to Florida, I never knew for sure and I never saw him or spoke to him again. As time was passing I was gaining weight fearful of my secret being known. I turned to a friend named Skip that just came home on military leave. He took me to the free clinic where it was confirmed I was going to have a baby. Now three months pregnant, I came down with German measles. I had no clue how dangerous this was for a pregnant girl and went through the medicines I needed. There was no information shared to me by anyone so I was not fearful. I got through this illness and Skip and I became close friends. That summer of '72 my parents announced that they bought their dream home in the suburbs and we were moving. I was grateful because by now, all my friends suspected I was pregnant which for that time in history, a girl was labeled a whore. I did not return to my Catholic school that fall but went into a new public school hoping this new reputation would not follow me. I binded my waist and belly painfully until I was six months pregnant and kept my secret from my parents. I knew time was running out and I had to tell them. Skip offered marriage to me and said he would be at my side when I told my father and we would tell him it was his child. That was our plan.
When that day came, I remember sitting at the kitchen table and telling my parents that I was pregnant. My poor friend Skip was almost beaten up from my rather large and intimidating father but he did not back down and he stuck to the story. In such fear and grief I was putting my friend through I could not continue the lie and all the truth came out. I was sent to my room, Skip was thrown out of the house and my parents decided my fate. I was quickly whisked to Buffalo New York where my mother's only sister lived and I moved in with my aunt and uncle for my remaining time. My parents wanted me to have an abortion which I always feared, was totally against and the reason why I waited so long to tell my parents the news. To save "face" among the "family" they were all told my uncle was sick and my aunt needed my help. All these years none of my father's side of the family ever found out this embarrassing event. I have carried the shame and the secret within still.
I gave birth to a 8 1/2 lb baby girl on December 21, 1972. I was told by my parents that if I did not give up this child for adoption I will not be allowed to live at home and the fear of God was placed inside of me as the story was unfolded about my future of living in the streets with a love child. What possible choice did I have at age 16? The adoption was private because the doctor knew of a family looking to adopt and I signed the papers for them to have the great Christmas present loving parents could ever hope for. The night before our departure, I begged the night nurse to sneak my baby to me so I could just see her just once. My head pounded for days from the spinal block but it did not stop me from sitting up and holding my little girl. I undressed her to look at her toes that looked just like mine, her ears, her lips, her eyes. She was me reborn! I held her to the heavens with tears rolling down my face and with all the faith in God and in my heart I proclaimed: "As God is my witness, one day we will reunite because I will not leave this earth without us meeting once again!"
I swore it on my life and all that was holy that one day this would happen.
Shortly after I returned home. Depressed from what I went through, I was on a destructive path. I started to drink, hang out with the wrong crowds that were into drugs and suicide was something I thought of to end my torment I felt inside. My parents seeing the change in me took me to the psychologist's office and within one visit I was labeled Manic Depressive and committed into a mental hospital. Where this should have helped me medically, it only added fear back into my life. Trapped like a rat I wanted to escape. The unit I was locked down in had people of both genders crazy as crazy can be yet I was among them, the stories are plentiful. I had to get a grip and I had to get out of this place. I spit out the many drugs they forced me to take, I cleared out my head and spoke the words that allowed me my release from a prison wall I never should have seen. I was returned home, played the game to make it through school and married the first man that would except my past at age 19. Within two months I was pregnant and gave birth to my daughter and three years later my son.
Each Christmas we would decorate the family tree together and my heart bled tears from the one child that was not there to share our memories. My kids too young to understand, I kept quiet and they never knew for years why Christmas was so depressing to me. I made the best of it and each year I bought my baby a gift as I added her age in my head and purchased something small from me to her as if at any time she would be returned to me. Years passed by. I felt no hope in ever finding her. New York had sealed the records, my doctor retired and the lawyer moved. There was no one that could help me and in anger, I took all the presents and threw them all away.
My marriage fell apart. My husband began to drink and the verbal abuse began. Was this my life, my destiny? Was this what my children should see? I had to leave. I packed a suitcase for each child and we left everything we had. A year later now divorced at age 29 I became the only parent that my children knew. He never saw his kids again and only lived 30 miles away from them. We struggled for years to make ends meet and I raised my kids to be the best they could be. Each one excelled in school and were active and I made sure they did not take that wrong turn in life. They had love, I still could not find mine. I married for the second time into a more abusive relationship than the first. How can I find my adopted daughter now when all I can offer her is a house of anger and verbal abuse? It kills me inside that so many years are passing by and I am no closer in finding her and no closer to peace in the household. I divorced finally the second time giving up trying to find that picture perfect family.
Once my children came of age (18) I told each one about their half sister. To my daughters shock came tears because she was no longer the oldest or the first born. When my son was told, he cried tears of love because he wanted to meet her and know another sister. I began my quest again.
Through all of this time through these years I was diagnosed with a rare skin disease having over 25 surgery's and unfortunately passing this genetic horror to both of my children. Does my first born also share this pain? Did the German Measles leave her with problems? The guilt of bringing children into the world and to go through my agony breaks me down to my knees. I pray. I pray everyday for the loss I had so many years ago, I ask for protection for her and my other kids. Health for all three of my children and I pray for forgiveness. But most of all I pray that one day we will all reunite the way it should have been from the very start.
My life now has still many winding roads filled with medical problems, financial burdens, and loneliness of never finding the mate in my life. I have stayed strong, learned, became independent. I feel at times I am not worthy of finding her because I have nothing to offer her, materialistically. I look within myself and I know how loving I am and how my accepting children are and I know I raised them well. I offer her pure love in my heart. Will she understand that? Can she forgive me for waiting so long and understand I wanted my life fixed first? Knowing this may not be my destiny I started searching now on the computer and the many web sites of lost souls reaching out to an abyss. My story is among the rest.
I cannot complete my life until I find her. My children are now young adults and encourage me not to give up again and this is why I write my story in hope and faith within my heart to make right the wrong I have suffered for three decades.
"As God is my witness, we will reunite."
Find me my baby girl. I have sent my love to the stars.
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© Sharon Milite 2003
(330) 686-2957
Smmilite@ra.rockwell.com
