Not Remembered Never Forgotten

[Klein1014]

Part One

Not Remembered, Never Forgotten



“Youth in April

A young woman and man,

Share a moment together,

And then

I am.”​

I am Robert, but I once had another name. As an infant I was held and loved by two women, one who would give me up, and another who raised me and loved me more than life itself. I suppose I should consider myself blessed to have been loved by two mothers when most of us get only one, and some none. My adopted father was a physician, a gentle man who devoted his life to helping the helpless. One didn’t need an appointment to see him; patients just came to his office and waited. He would come home when his waiting room was empty. My mother was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, having escaped the wave of Nazism that swept across Europe. She left all that she



knew and came to America with her brother and sisters. I am today the essence of my adopted father’s caring humanity and my adopted mother’s courage and relentless strength. Let me end all doubt that being raised in a bad home makes the adoptee search; it has nothing to do with it. My home was a blessing.

I came upon the world on January 28, 1951, somewhere in Jersey City, New Jersey. That was what my amended birth certificate stated. Adoptees never see their actual birth certificate; they only see a fictitious one and there is no way to know if the amended one is true or false. My parents believed I should know I was a “chosen” child and consequently, my awareness of being adopted is one of my earliest memories. I was told few facts about my birth mother; she was Jewish, single, and the agency was the Jewish Family Service. This is all I ever knew about my actual history. I assumed my adoptive family’s heritage as my own and wore it like an ill fitting coat, keeping me warm in winter and the rain off my back, but I always knew it wasn’t really mine. From my earliest memories I always had a strong drive to discover my past, to know who I would have been, and what kind of people

created me. I yearned to know if I had brothers and sisters. I wanted, more than anything, to see a face that resembled my own. Soon, the truth was about to be revealed to me, and I would discover exactly why I had such strong feelings about a mother I never knew.
. The law, in its concreteness, doesn‘t address this need and assumes that the social dynamics remain the same for a developing child and a grown adult. To paraphrase Locke an adult, as a

citizen, owns a property, in his own person. I demand from the state the deed to my person. I demand the right that I have been endowed with at birth, to know who I am, to be respected by the state, just like everyone else.

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