Illuminated

It was what you might call a happy accident 
Because I hadn't looked at that podcast in weeks 
But there at the top of the app, you sat 
Hair quiffed, chunky jewellery 
Wearing baby blue nail varnish 
Calm, composed, with a mug of steaming tea 
Someone who wouldn’t know me 
But went to the same university 
Friends with my first ever boyfriend 
But let’s stop there because that’s a different story. 

I felt ready to be illuminated by you 
About what it meant to see that ink on paper  
How many times you must have read it 
The story of your arrival in 1982 
When you were taken from your mother 
And placed with a new family 
Which is exactly where me and my wife want to be 
But what a strange sentence — the tension 
To acknowledge the rip, the split and the jolt 
Which people never even really used to mention. 

So we're learning, learning, learning, you see 
Accepting the loss that has to form the start 
Of us getting to build our family 
There's training - trauma, attachment, the child brain 
Understanding not just what is lost but what is gained 
Opening up the treasures and locked boxes 
Of our own childhoods to trawl through, delicately  
Mapping out our ecosystem, our family tree 
Then there’s first aid courses, medicals, references 
And making (awkward) contact with exes. 

But back to your letter — 
the envelope in tatters 
Well-worn words like a hymn or a prayer 
The story of your start. Your life. Your birth mother 
(I’ve started to like the term ‘first mother’) 
Slips of folded paper still safe after all these years 
Of course. Always in your bedside drawers 
The correct place -  
The same place I keep all my treasures 
But nothing quite so precious. 

In the weeds of the words 
You highlight the things that hurt, like — 
The use of ‘home’ for a place you’ve never known 
Spending your first week in hospital, jaundiced and alone 
Two brothers who came along, were kept and stayed 
And I wonder how often you wonder 
About things like stonemasonry and Sunday roasts 
How you’ve ended up so tall and missed fishing trips 
The wallpaper in the flat where you were born 
And the first and last kiss from your mother’s lips. 

Then you read a line in the letter which makes you cry 
And I breathe out and let the relief blossom in me 
Because the tears are falling for your adoptive family 
And it gives me hope that our future children 
Will hold space in their heart for what went before 
And know in the deepest part of their bones 
That we absolutely and completely could not love them more 
And to dare to dream that one day they might say (like you did) 
To their social worker, my wife or me: 
“I wouldn't have had you do anything differently.” 

I wouldn't have had you do anything differently.