If Grace Paley Wrote the Story of My Life

This is the story of one of the most important parts of my life, giving up a baby for adoption and then being reunited with her in adulthood. When I sat down to write, I found that I was channeling Grace Paley, which was okay with me. I love Grace Paley.

If Grace Paley Wrote the Story of My Life

It is the story of a young woman involved in the business of being on her own, even though her parents regularly send her money, and she mostly lives in her mind, thinking about what could be, what should be, what it is “to be or even not to be.” It is 1964, Sartre and Heidegger are around, and she is that kind of young woman.

She spends much of her time with a young man who also lives in his mind, plays the piano almost as well as Horowitz, and excels at math. Aside from reading the existential philosophers as well as Nabokov and Kant, the young man concentrates on his bad dreams, of which he has many. This goes on for about a year, during which time they get married because the concept of “living together” had not been perfected yet. Nor had access to birth control pills, for that matter, and one day the young woman discovers she is pregnant.

To some extent, this brings her to her senses. The young woman realizes that the young man’s bad dreams, while compelling, are his. She also realizes more clearly than she has ever realized anything in her entire life that this is not a suitable atmosphere in which to bring a baby.

When she considers the alternatives, none seem satisfactory. If she takes this baby home to her mother and father, she also becomes dependent, just at a point when she is in the business of becoming independent. Furthermore, she realizes that it is 1964, and that the baby would come with a heavy wrapping of unhappiness, obligation, and shame. She thinks her parents would be up to it, because they are not the turn-the-picture-to-the-wall types, but, frankly, on her own life’s journey, it seems like going backwards.

The young man feels that his house, while nicely furnished, is a terrible place for babies, and if she needs proof, look at him and his bad dreams. She thinks that it is best for the self within herself to have a chance to create itself anew, without, as they say these days, all that heavy baggage.

“The right thing to do is to give this baby up for adoption,” said this voice within her that grew stronger every day. It was a lonely voice, but it was hers. She felt like someone whose mind and body were in the real world making tough decisions.

Alas, after sending the baby out into the world on a wing and a prayer, being quite relieved that the young man decided to take his bad dreams elsewhere, she went back to being dependent upon her parents. Somewhat afraid of facing any more ordeals, she fell back into a family system and a cultural system that said, “You’re basically a good girl. Now settle down with a bone fide husband, have a couple of kids, and be grateful that you come from a nice family.”

She did all that. This time she chose a young man who not only had his own bad dreams-- which she was beginning to think that everyone had at least a few—but also wore plaid wool shirts, gave her a pair of sturdy hiking boots, which she took to mean that he wanted her to stand on her own two feet, and he was her soul mate.

As a matter of fact, he came right home from the office the day she called him and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but you know that baby I had thirty years ago? Well she just tapped me on the shoulder—so to speak—and said, “Hello there. Remember me? In case you were wondering, I arrived safely in Carson City, Nevada back in 1964, was welcomed by open arms. The genes worked well, by the way. These people, my mom and dad, have loved me dearly up to and including this very day.” Furthermore, the baby married her high school sweetheart and gave birth to the most adorable children in town, if not the seven western states.

The baby said that she had always been curious about the womb from which she entered forth and the young woman who owned it, even a little curious about the sperm who dated the egg, or the prick with the dick. (She had already been doing some asking around town and not come up with a favorable report on the paternal side.)

When the young woman heard all this, she was no longer a young woman. She was fifty-four and probably about as grown-up as she was going to be. The joy at this good news was so overwhelming that she almost had a religious conversion. She kept saying, “ Grace abounds,” and “Let God be the judge,” because those sayings, even though they were not on her refrigerator, seemed to express how she felt about this marvelous news. After all, the baby was having a good life, whether the not-so-young woman knew it or not; and, in spite of the small adult solitary voice that had told her those many years ago, “This is the right thing to do and you know it,” she had worried that she had done the wrong thing. In fact, she had spent a portion of every adult day of her life feeling bad about herself in general and judging herself harshly about this incident in particular. It came to about 10,950 hours.

Only two years previously had she been able to tell her children, then thirteen and seventeen, that she had given up a baby for adoption. This had been the result of working with a therapist who seemed to know her business and said, “It’s always good to be honest; what’s life without a few messes; and statistics show that when adopted babies get to be about thirty, they often start looking for their womb and its owner.” She was right on all counts.

The fifty-four-year-old-not-so-young woman felt great relief; her husband was happy for her. Her kids, who loved her but were rather shocked to find that their mother was a grandmother and they weren’t even dating, said, “So what other surprises do you have for us?”

“No more surprises,” she said.

Now the past was in the past, grace abounded, God was in his heavens being the judge, and the not-so-young-woman realized that what was ahead of her and the baby was the future, which included three very cute combinations from the gene vat who didn’t know what to call her and she didn’t know what to call them. “This is going to be interesting,” she thought and was glad that the world had lightened up a bit since 1964.

She and the baby started writing letters and talking on the telephone and everything was going along pretty well except I forgot to mention that the not-so-young woman had a mother who certainly deserves a story of her own, if not an entire prime time mini-series. When the not-so-young woman told her mother about the baby’s appearance out of the clear blue sky and the happy story she had to tell, she knew her mother would be filled with gratitude and joy She was.

The not-so-young woman had not talked too much about the amazing moment of meeting the baby, taking the picture albums to the restaurant and saying, “This is me as a baby. This is me on a horse. This is my mother. This is my father.”

And the baby going, “Wow.”

Basically, the not-so-young woman told her mother that the baby turned out nicely, was of the happy, curious type, whether due to genetics or upbringing. She also told her mother that she had reported to the baby, “There’s some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that there’s not much left in the relative department. The good news is that you have a biological grandmother up in Elko who is hot stuff in the mother slash/grandmother category and who would welcome you with open arms, I’m sure of it, and, by the way, she will want to know what size clothes the kids wear and if anybody needs her to knit a hat.”

Sure enough, just as the not-so-young woman had predicted, the biological grandmother met them at the door with open arms, took them on a picnic and out to dinner, got the kids’ sizes, fell in love with the whole adorable package, and quickly observed that the little girl really could use a hat.

What happened for the next year made the not-so-young woman so mad she couldn’t see straight. At the same time she said to herself, “I could have told myself so,” and “So, what’s wrong that the baby should have one of those biological grandmothers with open arms who knits, gets out picture albums, tells stories first and from her point of view when the baby asks, “So what was the young woman with the womb from which I emerged like when she was a teenager? Did she smoke cigarettes and drive up and down the main drag as I’ve heard they did in those days?”

The not-so-young woman was only guessing at these conversations because she was, in fact, an English teacher grading papers in northern California. But she knew a few things about the biological grandmother, having emerged from the above-mention’s womb and been quite familiar with the owner for over fifty years. For example, she knew that the biological grandmother would take this new title very seriously. If there were to be a contest for newly discovered biological grandmothers, she would be in the running.

Well, the not-so-young woman out in California grading papers began resenting the biological grandmother’s one hundred percent absorption in her new role, which included being the Sole Remaining Biological Grandmother, Keeper of the Historical Record, Visiting Dignitary to Represent Our Side of the Family, and the One Who Ought to Take Charge because the not-so-young woman was busy grading papers and, in her opinion, not so great in the take-charge department.

As a matter of fact, the not-so-young-woman felt like chopped liver. Even though she was having a nice correspondence and pleasant phone calls with the baby, and had put over ten thousand hours of guilt and remorse into this project, the biological grandmother was having all the fun. She was happy for the baby who had, indeed, discovered that the biological grandmother was hot stuff, but she was not happy that the biological grandmother was getting such a kick out of the whole thing. She felt small and mean-spirited, but she couldn’t help it.

The not-so-young woman was also annoyed and hurt that the biological grandmother didn’t get the Big Picture—that this was her story and it was a great story, somewhat like Days of Our Lives, where a young woman who Does the Right Thing is at last re-united with her baby. In the Days of Our Lives version, the biological grandmother stays in her rocker and says, “This is not my story and Fred wouldn’t like it.” (Fred, being her deceased husband who would have been filled with gratitude and joy that the baby had arrived safely in Carson City and was having a good life, but not wanted too much to do with the whole thing. He didn’t like big dramatic stories about wombs, especially his daughters’.) But Fred was deceased, and, in this instance, it was a good thing. No sense in making him uncomfortable or needing to remind he that, in some cases, he could have used an attitude adjustment.

So, as you can see, the daughter was torn. On one hand, here was this robust biological granny going to town with the situation, and this go-getter baby grinning from ear-to-ear. On the other hand, the not-so-young woman felt like someone had revised the script, given her a walk-on part, and then sent her back to California to grade papers.

The situation worsened. The biological grandmother, who had a hearing problem and had bought a hearing aid but inadvertently sat on it, could see that the not-so-young woman was upset but she couldn’t hear her. She simply responded with what she knew was true even if it wasn’t written on a refrigerator magnet. “I’m too old to change” and “Your father and I always loved you” and “We did the best we could.” The biological grandmother went about her business, but with a heavy heart and the not-so-young woman did likewise.

Finally, one day the not-so-young woman said some mean-but-having-a-grain-of-truth things to her mother in a voice so loud it got her attention. She went into the bedroom and put on her other hearing aid (she always had two of everything) and, although she wasn’t thrilled about the prospect, sat down and said, “What do you want me to do, unknit the knitting?”

“No,” said her daughter, “just listen to my story.”