The scene from the front yard of Baby Richard’s former home was gut-wrenching. Ripping at our heart strings, it showed the agony of a 4-year-old child who could not fully understand what was happening, and the agony of adults who knew too well. The tragedy, as we all know, is that the life of a defenseless child has been inexorably disrupted. He likely will never be the same. He likely will lose trust in those who say they love him, and he will feel an impermanence of family for many years to come.
I was placed with a foster family when only a few weeks old, and that family adopted me at age 5. My adoptive mother took me to visit my biological family on a frequent basis. Despite this contact, which continues today, there are still unresolved questions about why I was not returned to my biological family at the conclusion of World War II and why I was the only one of four children put up for adoption. You would think these thoughts would even- tually go away. They have not.
My biological family and adoptive family each have a separate and distinct memory of the events surrounding the adoption. Likely, so will those of Baby Richard. He is too young to make his own accurate memories of the event; he will have to rely on the memories of others and the accounts published in the news media. He may find, as I do at age 52, that no one “true” account exists.
Baby Richard may well wonder for the rest of his life how it could be that his birth mother gave him up in the first place, why his adoptive mother and father abandoned him, “gave him away,” why he was not “good enough to keep.” Sadly, it is entirely possible that no amount of love from either family will remove the insecurities branded within his mind and emotions on April 30. He may have a very difficult time ever trusting or loving another human being. That is a true tragedy.
