Out of Step with My Lost Son

There was no birthday party for my son today. He died two weeks before his 35th birthday in 2003. It is not natural for a child to die before the parents, and so mourning for a child has a particular pain to it that other deaths in the family do not have.

I once thought of writing something about my son and me. Although I didn't get very far with the writing, the title came to me quickly -- Out of Step -- because that best described us and our relationship. Each one of us was out of step with society's norms and expectations, and with each other.

In the 1970s, there were heated debates in multicultural circles about whether it was better for all cultures in America to merge into a tasty soup, or maintain certain characteristics as in a stew where a carrot remains identifiably a carrot, a potato stays a potato, etc. Which was better for America? For the individual? For the ethnic group?

At the time my husband said he was ready for a child, I was 25. Influenced by the plight of foster children because I had been a foster care social worker, and touched by the dire predictions of Zero Population Growth, I said I wanted to adopt a child that needed a home rather than create a biological child. He agreed, and within three months or our application, we had our beautiful honey-colored toddler. We had asked for a "hard to place" child, and mixed black/white children past infancy was the largest group needing families at that time.

Soon after, black social workers in California felt that transracial adoptions were bad. Even no permanent home was a better fate to them than white parents who, by virtue of being white, wouldn't be able to adequately prepare their black children for being black in America. While not taking back black children that were already adopted, they stopped white adoption of black children dead in its tracks. And there it lay for years during the intense era of black power and fighting for Civil Rights. All of this seems so odd now given the many changes in adoption, transracial adoption, intermarriage, and the significant number of mixed black/white children in the U.S. today.

Time passed, our son grew handsome and tall. None of us was prepared for the divorce. At that time, I did not understand why it was happening, but I knew I was responsible for it. I almost drowned in the guilt of destroying what I had worked so hard to build. And my son never really forgave me. Weakened by the strength it took for me to leave, I accepted my 13-year-old son's decision to remain with his father. It is more common now for fathers to take care of their children after divorce, but it was quite unusual in the late 1970s.

Over the next several years, from Israel, China, and all the other countries I lived in or visited, I kept writing even after he said he wanted no more contact with me. There were occasional uncomfortable visits when I returned to the U.S. or he traveled to where I was. He grew even taller, more handsome, and strong. When I no longer knew where he lived, his dad sent my letters on to him. I was often exuberantly happy in my now worldwide life of challenge, travel, and adventure. But guilt was always my tucked-away traveling companion.

Out of the blue, five years after he had shunned all contact with me, and 14 years after he was found to be HIV positive, he called me. He was cool and detached, and I wasn't really sure why he had called. He said he may or may not call again. A few weeks later, his dad called to say that he was in the hospital diagnosed with the progression of HIV into AIDS. He quit work and became housebound. When my phone sometimes rang at 1:30 a.m., I had mixed feelings. I knew who it would be, but also knew that he would speak to me like a petulant teenager, taking up the relationship from the age I had left him.

He made a last trip to see me. He was still tall and handsome, but far from strong. He was as breathless as an old, old man. Instead of trying to talk, he gave me a page from his diary written three years earlier. It said, "So, now I'm wondering why I've been thinking about mom so much the last ten to eleven months or so. There's no anger there. Actually, I've thought how fortunate I've been. She really was a terrific mother! She taught me to 'see' more and how to be open to the unknown. I have mostly very good memories of childhood (mostly = 85%), so many opportunities sent/brought to me. A multitude of seemingly unimaginable, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Is it possible there were too many? Find myself acutely aware of constant introspection: Why so much? (So much more?)"

The closest moment on that visit was when I read to him while he was in the emergency room awaiting transport to a hospital better able to deal with his rapidly deteriorating condition. Still, he lived another year and continued to call occasionally. He never gave me his phone number or invited me to his apartment. But, after he died, I went with his dad to take care of his belongings. There, in his apartment, I got a glimpse of the man he had grown into that he had not allowed me to know. Each section of each room was artistically arranged like a series of vignettes of what had been important in his life. I read letters from his friends which allowed me to know how others had perceived him. And, carefully placed on his desk, tied with a decorative string, was a package of all the opened letters I had sent him.

Since then, I have felt closer to him in death than I did for the majority of his almost 35 years. In an old film canister, his ashes travel with me so I can spread them in beautiful places I visit. The little mementos I took from his apartment now bring him permanently into my home. Guilt still mingles with tears for my son as my life winds down.