Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On How Adoption Saved My Life

Welcome to this week’s Womanly Wednesday! Today’s post is by Trisha of The Ham And Cheese Of It, a blogger I’ve come to enjoy a lot over these last few months.  It breaks my heart to know so many kids go through traumatic situations like this but I am so encouraged by men and women like Roxanne who step into that situation and offer hope, love, and grace.  Thanks for sharing your story, Trisha! 

I am so grateful to have been chosen to participate in Womanly Wednesday. I have very much enjoyed reading the passionate, heart wrenching stories from the women that have contributed to Lauren’s Womanly Wednesday series. When she asked her readers for guest posts I felt conflicted, as I am sure many of my predecessors before me felt as well. But my adoring husband made a great point. What if someone else is in my shoes? Well, as always he had a great point.

My biological mother is a felon, drug addict and even though she has never been charged, she has, on more than one occasion, alluded to the fact that she may or may not have been a participant in a murder. She has also been arrested for money laundering, credit card fraud, domestic abuse (she shot her second husband in the leg), arson and intent to distribute. The list goes on and on and on. I could fill this entire story up with just her legal woes. But I am not here to talk about her. I am here to talk about a woman named Roxanne.

In November of 1996 my biological mother, in the dead of night, dragged my sister and I out of bed. We were dressed in over sized t-shirts and socks. She didn’t even let us put our shoes on or pack any of our things as she rushed us out into the cold November night. She quickly loaded us up into her then current husband’s beat up lime green truck. I remember her fiddling with the radio and smoking a cigarette as we drove the twenty-five minutes to my father’s house.

Once we arrived at his house she ushered us out of the truck and onto my father’s front door step. She knocked on his dark wood stained door four times before my dad and his new wife, Roxanne, opened the door. All my mother said that day was, “I can’t keep them. You take them.” She shoved us forward a little and then she turned promptly around, got back in the beat up old truck and left. Just like a ghost in the night. I didn’t know then, but I wouldn’t hear from her again for almost another year.

I do remember my Dad looking around confused as to why she would just leave us behind like that, but Roxanne passed my new baby sister over to my dad with the easy grace of any new mom. She immediately grabbed us and pulled us in side out of the cold. Inside she hugged me as I cried. I didn’t really know my dad very well except for the handful of times my mom would actually bring us to his house for his weekends. She was real flighty like that. But Roxy (that’s what I used to call her back then) hugged me tight and told me everything was just fine now. Not too worry we’ll have pancakes for breakfast.

Before, living with my mother, food was always hard to find. If we had any at all. She always seemed to spend the money for groceries on other things. Like alcohol or drugs. We never went to school and when we did we were dirty and starving. There was even a time when my mother was running from someone (she always was it seemed) and we ended up living under a bridge in that old pick up truck for almost a month.

But then… all of a sudden I had Roxanne. She changed my life. She, along with many other people, saved me. I was on a road to nowhere fast. A road were I would end up just like my mother, another nobody in the system, a last call on a social workers list before heading home. A file to be lost with all the others.

But Roxy made sure I had clothes on my back and food in my belly. She worked hard for children that she never asked for and never intended on raising. My Father, is a retired police officer now and worked many hours and many days when I was younger was home hardly at all when we were growing up. A sacrifice I am very proud of. But Roxanne carried the weight of both my biological parents. A task no one ever asked her to do.

A task that seemed heavier on more days than most. Between my sister and myself we were an emotional roller coaster of trauma that some felt no amount of therapy could fix. But still she stayed vigilant in her goal to make us more than just a name in a folder. She immediately enrolled us in sports, dance and gymnastics. Anything to help us get socialized with more children our age, to help us enjoy what small bit of childhood we had left. She took us to our therapy sessions, doctor’s appointments and after school programs.

Because of my biological mother’s stellar career as a criminal I never stayed in one school long enough to learn how to read or write. I somehow skated into the third grade unable to spell my name. Immediately my Dad and Roxy found me a special tutor to come to my elementary school to help me catch up during recess. Roxanne read to me every single night, helping me and encouraged me to find books that looked fun and made reading enjoyable instead of overwhelming.

When it came to my school work she tacked on additional at home assignments. I had to write my letters out, make flash cards and practice them on the spot when we were out in public. She never gave up on me or my education. She pushed me to the limit and for a long time I resented her for that. But by the time I hit the sixth grade I had the reading level of a freshmen college student. I even won the state U.I.L. dictionary and spelling competition that sixth grade year as well. Later, in High School, I would earn a letter on my letter man jacket for getting one of the highest marks for an english essays on our yearly state exams in the school. All because she took the extra time after work to read to me, to make me sit down and write words out until I couldn’t any more.

She took the time and I will forever be grateful for her for that. She loved me when my mother couldn’t be bothered. When no one else cared and left me, lost in the system. She watched me walk the stage on my High School graduation day (something neither of my biological parents accomplished, both received GED’s later in life), helped me move into my first apartment, congratulated me on my wedding, and flew 13,000 miles to make sure she was there holding my hand on the day I delivered my daughter. She was there and I don’t know how I could have ever done any of this without her, she helped me over come my own fears of becoming a mother. My daughter calls her G-MAW and will forever know her as her Grandmother. Because Roxanne is my Mother. Maybe not by blood. But by sheer will, sweat and tears she earned ever single letter of that title.

I am so grateful she adopted me. I am so honored to have her choose me to be her daughter. I am so blessed to call her my Mother. Being adopted was the absolute best thing that could have ever happened to me. It saved my life. She saved my life.

Bio: My name is Trisha and I am the writer, editor and photographer for The Ham & Cheese Of It. I am also the wonderful mother to a new baby girl  and an awesome wife to a very handsome husband. Because of my husband’s military career we get the opportunity to travel internationally quite often. As of right now we currently live in Japan and this winter we will be moving to Germany. The Ham & Cheese Of It is a place for me to write about my experiences as a new mom, our overseas adventures, the food that we share together as a family and everything in-between. You can read more about me here or here.