How do you break through a Silence 
you have been taught does not exist?

My two elder siblings were adopted like me, so in our family, adoption was the norm. When our little brother was born—my parents’ first and only biological child—we joked that he was the odd man out, even though we all knew, deep down, that wasn’t true. 

We may have been a majority in our family, but out in the real world, we were the odd ones. That was clear as day in our neighborhood, at school and church, and everywhere else. 

“You are a bastard!” yelled my playmate Jane one day while we ran through her large open yard. 

I stopped in my tracks. “What?” I asked, my six-year-old self curious, but confused, because I could sense something harsh and a little mean in her voice. 

“My mother said you’re a bastard. That means your real mother wasn’t married when she had you. It’s against the law!” She had a bit of a triumphant grin on her face. It clearly brought her not a small amount of pleasure to inform me of my status as an illegal human. 

I felt tears rise to my eyes. What could this possibly mean? I didn’t know, but I could sense it was something very bad. 

“No, I am not illegal!!” I shouted, clenching my fists, indignant and determined not to cry. She was older than me, and bigger, but I was not one to give up easily.

I couldn’t let her see how the tears were coming, though, stronger now; I couldn’t stand to let her see how deeply her words had cut me. I turned and ran down the short, grassy slope leading to the sidewalk, and veered right, across the street toward my house. 

The screen door slammed behind me as I plunged into the kitchen, tears on my cheeks and sobs in my chest. 

“Mommy, mommy, Janey called me illegal! She said I was a bastar!!” Now the tears were flowing so hard, my nose had started running too. 

My mother seemed to hesitate a moment, as she bent over to hug me. “Who told you that? Janey? Oh dear. No, Martha, you are not illegal. You were adopted! You know that. That is not the same thing. You are our daughter, our legal daughter! Now stop crying, there is nothing to be so upset about!” 

She was trying to be soothing, but I could sense she was upset, too. 

“But what is a bastar, mommy? She called me a bastar!!” And the tears came back, as I remembered Janey’s taunting, accusatory tone. 

“Martha, honey,” her tone was the one she used when she explained something important. “A bastard,”she stressed the final d, “is a very bad word for a baby born to a man and a woman who are not married. Remember when I explained to you how a man and a woman make babies? Well, that is supposed to happen when they are married, but sometimes they make a mistake and a baby comes even though they are not married. It is a very mean word, and I don’t ever want to hear you say it again. You are our daughter, our legally adopted daughter, and you are not a bastard!”

I heard her mutter something under her breath about going to talk to Janey’s mother.

“But mommy, was my mother married to my father? If I am legal, why did they give me to you?” I asked, blowing heavily as my mother held a tissue to my nose.

“No, Martha, your mother and father weren’t married. That’s why they gave you to us, so you could have both a mommy and a daddy who were married and grow up with a good family that loves you. But that does not mean you are illegal! You are our legal daughter!”

I noticed that she did not explain why I was not actually a bastard, since my entrance into the world fit the description of a baby whose mother and father were not married when they made me. I pondered over that puzzle the rest of the day, and many days afterwards. But the way she said the word, and how she told me to never use it again, made it clear it was better not to talk about it.

Better to remain silent about all those things that might be difficult, awkward, painful. Better to focus on only the positive side of things—that I was now a legally adopted child and had a mommy and a daddy and a sister and two brothers. A perfect little family, just as my parents had dreamed of.

Silence can be very loud. When it arises from an attempt to cancel out simple truths, like a child’s biological beginnings, it occupies the space between what is spoken, filling it up with dread for what might be hiding there. All the facts that could shatter the fragile sheen of propriety are held in the murky awareness of those who know, but who feel they cannot, must never, share them with anyone else. Least of all the child herself.

This Silence allows shame to fester and grow, and the longer it is held in place, the more its poisonous tendrils spread, suffocating any easy attachment to one’s own identity, to others, to life itself.

I had been told a million times by family members, friends, therapists, teachers, and mentors of all types that the only thing I could do was to let it all go and honor the fact that my mother’s decision was final and had to be respected as such. This was especially true because when I requested an official search through the adoption agency, and they found her, she reconfirmed her decision to not have any contact with me.

She had given me the gift of life, and that had to be enough.

When DNA testing became commercially available some years later, I resisted at first. My mother’s decision was final and had to be respected. 

Who knows, The Silence reminded me, what awful pain and disruption to her life I could cause her, were I to continue to try to connect with her?!

But … my inner voice whispered, pushing me to go deeper … what about me? 

In some corner of my deepest self I knew I was not wrong to want to challenge The Silence around my beginnings, and the toxic shame that grew out of it, choking everything in its way, like an invasive weed. 

But I also knew I could not challenge it alone.

It was only when I opened myself to hear new voices, those of other adoptees, who knew the doubt and fear and hope, the sadness, loss, and love that I felt, even after so many years, that I began to find the strength I would need to challenge The Silence. 

They reassured me that I was not wrong or crazy for how The Silence caused me deep, unrelenting, suffering, all the more confusing for how foggy and unclear it was, without any facts to stand on. 

I was right for wanting to smash the conspiracy of shame, and stand tall in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world.

It would take two years after having my DNA mapped for any connections to emerge, but one cold February day, an email plopped into my inbox from a second cousin on my father’s side. 

Within days, I had names, dates, and places of birth of both my parents and several half-siblings, pictures and current addresses and snippets of facts and family stories gleaned from the Internet and from my newfound relatives on my father’s side.

It finally became clear what I had been struggling with for so long: 

How could I let go of something I had no hold on? 

How could I find my voice when The Silence is a prohibition, lodged deeper than my conscious mind, within my very cells?

For the first time, I could begin to make sense of how I had felt all my life, of how The Silence had affected me.

And I began to feel that I could walk forward in a new way.

I could learn to stand tall, speak my truth, affirm my love for myself and my life by putting an end to The Silence, without shame. 

Even though it may be painful, I could fill it with truth; truth, when inspired by love, fosters freedom.

Since that day, I have been filled with the joy of being celebrated on my father’s side, and with the devastating hurt of being shunned by my mother’s. 

But by stepping forward to announce my existence, I have shattered The Silence, and delight every day with the new sounds, the new words, and sometimes even the new kinds of tears that have begun to flow.