by Cindy Shultz It’s been 7056 days without my son. The ache in my soul is relentless. Since losing my son to an adoption nearly 20 years ago, confusion and scrambled thoughts have ruled my mind as if I have no will of my own. I am bound by panic when confronted with a decision for fear that it will be the wrong choice again. In the fall of 2004, when I found out I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I was excited to tell the father! He was intoxicated as usual and came over to sit on my lap. Stroking my hair, he cooed in my ear, “We’ll take care of this. Everything will be ok.” I didn’t immediately realize he wanted me to have an abortion. Could I get an abortion? Heartbeat International advertised “options counseling.” When I went, they showed me graphic videos and suggested adoption instead. The lady said, “It’s open now, you know. You can remain in your child’s life”.
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by Shannon Quist When you ask someone about their Ghost Kingdom, what you’re really asking is: What is the fiction you’ve created to cope with your loss? Who are the characters you wish were in your life? What are the scenarios you would choose for yourself if you had that power? Betty Jean Lifton defined the Ghost Kingdom as a psychic reality, an alternate scenario, a daydream and a fantasy built up in the wake of the indescribable loss that occurs in adoption. Adoptees fantasize about their biological families, mothers about their relinquished children, adoptive parents about the children out of their reach. The concept of a Ghost Kingdom was created to give helpful metaphorical language, that of haunting and regret and loss, to the adoption constellation so we could describe the jarring interference of “what could have been” in our lifelong experiences. We usually conceptualize the Ghost Kingdom as the fantasies that occur in separation as we confront the impossible, the unknowing, but as I learned when I met my mother for the first time, sometimes our fantasies are too hard to let go of, especially when reality isn’t what we want it to be. The following is a short excerpt (with a few necessary omissions) from a book I don’t intend on publishing. I wrote it for my daughter so that she might have something of our biological history to dig into if she is ever curious about it. It’s about the first day I met my mother and a reflection on both of our Ghost Kingdoms as they sat in the courtyard alongside us while we established what would turn out to be a four month long relationship before she passed. |
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October 2024
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