Family matters: Adoption

When a surprise letter released a family secret, Shonagh Walker was to discover that the dynamics of kinship are as ever-changing as the wind.

As a small child you think your parents are infallible. I certainly did. My father was my hero. He swang from would-be comedian to an utter softie who howled in sad movies and sobbed at touching TV commercials (to this day he still does).

Mum was always warm, incredibly loving and generous, forever ready with open arms if anyone so much as looked like they needed a hug. She could fix the seemingly insurmountable problems of our tiny worlds with a few well-chosen, loving words.

I have always been incredibly close to my mother. She is my best friend. Our personalities and thought processes are so alike that we can practically read each other’s minds. We are both strong and independent, with little need to rely on other people, but with a lot of love to share with those around us.

I think it was because of our intense similarities that I chose to live with my father when my parents separated. I was 10 at the time, and even at that tender age, I just knew Mum would be okay. Dad, on the other hand – while he was strong on the outside – had an inside of pure marshmallow and I wasn’t sure he would cope being on his own. Plus, as the youngest and the only girl, I was always Daddy’s Princess and I selfishly adored the attention he lavished on me, so I knew I would have little competition if I lived with him while my two elder brothers lived with Mum.

For a few years, family life was fraught with arguments and bitter disputes, as most situations in broken homes are. It changed pretty quickly when both parents found love elsewhere and a calm settled over our lives.

Mum met a beautiful man called Neville, who slotted into our family as though he had always been a part of it. He embraced us as though we were his own and was as tactile and loving as both my parents had always been. Dad met Lynda when I was 11. She was a fashion buyer he had met through work. She travelled the world and lived a glamorous life that my unsophisticated mind could barely comprehend. She lived alone in a flat in the city with a Burmese cat called Jana. I remember being in awe of her and thinking, ‘That is just what I want my life to be like when I grow up’.

I thought her life was so very exciting. She cooked exotic foods and wore all the latest fashions. She would bring me home samples from her international buying trips – next season’s hippest clothes that my school friends had to wait months for. It was like having a really cool big sister. And, like the rest of my family, she adored animals and never seemed to mind the menagerie of dogs, cats, canaries, guinea pigs and mice in our garden. She simply added her own animals to the ‘farm’.

We never really argued, rather joked with each other that she was my ‘step monster’, while we both knew that was far from the truth. But it felt as though something was missing. Where my mother, father and indeed, my stepfather, were the most tactile of parents and would use the phrase ‘I love you’ freely and generously, Lynda was quite the opposite. While she was always kind, giving and sweet, that open kind of loving-with-abandon just wasn’t in her make-up. It was more like love-at-arms-length.

I often wondered how I could make her love me more, but as the years went by, I accepted her as someone my dad was totally in love with and who was a really good friend to me. I later realised that those ‘barriers’ she put up were a combination of stoicism she had inherited from her mother and the result of a secret she had kept hidden for many years.

When I was 15, my father and Lynda were transferred to Melbourne for Dad’s work. I went with them, but never really settled there and moved back to Sydney and into my own flat almost as soon as I finished high school.

The years rolled on and we all grew and matured. My brothers had wed and had become fathers to six beautiful children between them. The years of emotional turbulence had settled into a blissful status quo, where everyone was content and looking forward to a joyous future. Where I had not been overly close with my brothers before, their children seemed to galvanise our relationship and we were gaining a better understanding and respect for each other as the years progressed.

When I was 33 I was offered a job at a small publishing firm in Melbourne. Rather than rushing to find a flat, I moved back in with Dad and Lynda. I missed the independence of living alone, but the three of us were getting along well and it was really comforting to be looked after by them, so I was quite lazy in looking for my own apartment.

One night I came home to find them in tears. I couldn’t fathom what might be wrong. There had been no indication that anything was out of kilter. All I could think was, ‘Oh no, does someone have cancer?’ I was shaking nervously, but they just told me to pour myself a drink and sit down. It was then that my stepmother blurted out: “You have a stepbrother.”

I couldn’t work out how this could be. Lynda had never had children. She was always the woman who thought of her cats as her babies, wasn’t she? I was in shock. A million things raced through my mind. I took a huge sip of red wine and demanded: “Hold on, explain this to me properly.”

It turned out that at the age of 19, when she was living alone in Sydney and had just started her first job, Lynda had become pregnant to a married man she was involved with. Abortion was never an option for Lynda. Aside from it being illegal in those days, it simply did not enter her mind.

Gordon Nugent, my stepbrother, was born on 28 August 1971. Under pressure from her strict, stoic mother and out of lack of support from the baby’s father, Lynda put him up for adoption as soon as he was born. As much as it pained her, she could see no other option. She was confident that he would be adopted into a loving home, which he was.

My stepmother has never stopped thinking about him since that day, and on that wintry night she had arrived home to find a letter from Adoption Services saying Gordon had requested information about her and wanted to contact her.

Suddenly that ‘something missing’ I had experienced growing up with Lynda made perfect sense. How could she love someone else’s child with abandon when her own son was not in her life?

She wanted to share her son’s every birthday, Christmas and important event in his life but wasn’t able to. She must have looked at me and my brothers with such a bittersweet affection. I know she cared for us deeply, but she must have always wondered what was happening in her own son’s life. My heart went out to her. I could see how excited and nervous she was that after 33 years she would finally be able to hold her son and share in his life.

As though she had been reading my mind, Lynda explained that while she had always loved my brothers and I, she felt that a huge part of her life was empty without Gordon. She said this letter was like finding a missing piece of a puzzle and it was about to add a whole other dimension to her life.

We joked about me no longer being the youngest and having a new brother with which to argue, but the truth was, I think I was as excited to meet him as both she and my father were. Dad had known about Gordon since he first met Lynda, but felt there was little point in telling everyone else in the family unless Gordon made contact. While Lynda had always wanted to contact him, she did not feel it was her place. She was unsure if he even knew he had been adopted and had always believed that when she gave Gordon away she had also given up all rights to knowing him. She felt this had to come to pass on his terms and at his bidding.

Six months went by before they actually met in person. In the meantime they had exchanged many letters, emails, photographs and phone calls, but because Gordon lived in Sydney it took a while for them to make firm plans.

Lynda eventually flew to Sydney. I had already moved back there by this stage, so the two of us had dinner together the night before she met Gordon. She was as excited as a child on Christmas Eve, but at the same time I could see how fearful she was that things may not work out as well as she was hoping.

She needn’t have worried, as their meeting went beautifully. They did not stop talking from the moment they met. Five hours later, their drinks and food remained untouched as they exchanged as much information as they could in their first encounter. They have both since said that night was a defining moment in their lives and that it has changed them forever. I could see the pride in Lynda’s eyes as she told me what an articulate, intelligent and entertaining man he is. She said he is an absolute gentleman and that she was so grateful to his parents for raising him to be such a fine person.

I was by now growing impatient to meet my stepbrother. I had seen photos of Gordon and was actually taken aback by his likeness to Lynda. When I finally met him one year later I could see so many similarities between them, right down to the way Gordon moves his hands and rubs his chin when talking – exactly the same way Lynda does.

Our first meeting was a huge success. Gordon and his lovely girlfriend, Natasha, joined Lynda, my mother and myself for my birthday dinner. It was such a night of celebration and we had a wonderfully festive time. We all got along instantly, and Gordon, Natasha and I have since become firm friends. We live about an hour’s drive from each other and have hectic careers, so we don’t catch up anywhere near as much as we would like, but it is nice to know that I have an extra family member in the same state.

Gordon coming into my life has been yet another blessing. While my parents’ divorce was certainly not pleasant – as no family split ever is – we have managed to remain a tight-knit family that shares a lot of love and I have always been grateful for this. It also has meant that I have an extended family unit that is very special.

People always find it strange that my parents and their spouses can come together peacefully for special occasions and I suppose it isn’t the norm. Of course, no-one can ever replace my mum or dad, but I do consider myself lucky that the events of my family life provided me with four fantastic parents who love me and look out for me. Now I also have another brother to laugh and share with and to make my family a bigger and even more loving group.

As a 37-year-old woman I now know my parents are human and fallible – they have flaws, faults and shortcomings just as I do. It’s these flaws, however, that give us our own special story to tell, that make us unique and that have provided me with such a constantly changing, always loving and exciting family group around me. I feel so blessed.

Adoption perspectives

Lynda says: “I believe that in a situation such as mine, the first move must come from the child. It really needs to start with them wanting to find out about where they have come from. Having said that, I would eventually have had to contact Gordon, as I could not have gone to my grave without ever knowing how my birth son had turned out.

“I suggest you register your name with the relevant government department so that if your child does want to make contact, it is easy for them to do so. It also lets your child know you are willing to be contacted. But be patient though; it took Gordon years before he decided to apply.

“You are strangers when you first meet, so go slowly. It is beneficial corresponding by email and letters at first as it gives you time to think and to formulate the best answers to questions.

“Also, be honest with your partner about your birth child from the start, so if you get a letter there is only joy, not anxiety about having to reveal your past.

“I have been lucky in the way that my situation has turned out. I‘d like to thank Gordon’s parents for adopting him in the first place and for raising him to be the wonderful person that he is.”

Gordon says: “I had known of my adoption from the age of 16 but it took almost 20 years after that for me to finally seek closure to one of my life’s greatest mysteries – who am I? My parents shared this information with me out of the fear I may find out myself one day and I am forever grateful that they did. Had I found out later in life that I had this secret, I would have felt wronged and cheated in finding my real identity.

“Despite all of my unanswered questions, I am thankful I could make contact in my own time. I was very grateful that Lynda had her contact details registered − the process was as simple as filling out the required forms and mustering the courage to mail it.

“The meeting was exciting and also frightening. Regardless of what the future held, I was determined to answer some of the hardest questions in my life that only one person could answer.

“Lynda is now a large part of my life and I feel very special that I now have my loving adoptive parents, Dave and Hazel, to whom I owe everything for raising me – and also my biological mother, Lynda, in my life. My family has grown somewhat, but these experiences only add to my unique, special life.”

Australian adoption support

Other organisations that specialise in adoption reconnections:

• ACT Adoption and Information Service
  www.dhcs.act.gov.au/ocyfs/adoptions.htm; (02) 6207 1335
• NSW Post Adoption Resource Centre
  www.bensoc.org.au/parc; (02) 9365 3444
• NT Adoption Unit
  www.health.nt.gov.au; (08) 8922 7077
• QLD Local and Post Adoptions Service
  www.childsafety.qld.gov.au; (07) 3224 7415
• SA Adoption and Family Information Service
  www.adoptions.sa.gov.au; (08) 8207 0060
• TAS Adoption and Information Service
  www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/adoption; (03) 6222 7397 
• VIC Adoption and Family Records Service
  www.dhs.vic.gov.au/ais; (03) 8608 5700

Photography: Sam McAdam. Hair & make-up: Jay Jay Rauwenhoff.