Myrl Coulter - The House with the Broken Two: A Birthmother Remembers

A number of resources were very helpful to me as I wrote this book. Of these, among the most important were Gone to an Aunts by Ann Petrie; The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler; Finding Families, Finding Ourselves: English Canada Encounters Adoption from the Nineteenth Century to the 1990s by Veronica Strong-Boag; and Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution by Judy Rebick.

I want to express my deep gratitude to the following people:

The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University, especially Betsy Warland, for organizing the 2010 First Book Competition.

John Mavin, for one of the best phone calls Ive ever received.

Karen Connelly, for choosing my manuscript.

Brian Kaufman and everyone at Anvil Press.

Aimee Ouellette, for wise editorial insights.

Janice Williamson, for unwavering support.

Andrea OReilly, for everything she has ever written and her dedication to all mothers everywhere.

my mother, who would not like this book, but who would probably speak to me again eventually, if only she could.

my father, who would be proud.

my sisters and my brother, who understand the way no one else can.

my four adult children, who fill my life with hope.

my husband, who made it possible for me to write.

Preface
Writing from Memory

Chapter One
The Edict

Chapter Two
In the Beginning

Chapter Three
Baby Boom

Chapter Four
The House with the Broken Two

Chapter Five
My Mothers Gravy

Chapter Six
Beatles and Boyfriends

Chapter Seven
Unwed, Not Dead

Chapter Eight
Three Years

Chapter Nine
Motherhood and Me

Chapter Ten
Three Funerals

Chapter Eleven
Questions without Answers

Chapter Twelve
A Long Labour

Chapter Thirteen
Birthmother

Epilogue
What Is Your Name?

MEMORY IS SLIPPERY . Fuzzy one minute, starkly vivid the next, memory operates as if it has its own will, emphasizing the highlights of a life even as it simultaneously diminishes less desirable, harsher moments. Memories of an event last much longer than the event itself. Essentially, once a moment has passed, all that remains of that moment is memory. And while an actual event becomes a memory, the memory of it becomes the event. Supported only by remaining artifacts, such as ticket stubs or photographs, memories of past events exist largely in the invisible realms of abiding emotions and enduring sensory remnants, in those ineffable places where the various truths of that event live on.

In this book, I recreate moments from different phases of my life as a series of related narratives. These selected moments dont exist in isolation from other life moments that I do not include here. Sifting through my memories, I had to decide which ones connected directly or indirectly to two life-changing events: surrendering my first-born child to the closed adoption system back in 1968 and welcoming him back into my life thirty-six years later.

Siphoned out of recollections stored somewhere in my psyche, this book is memoir, not autobiography: not a complete telling from the beginning of my life to the present, but an exploration of what I now see as related family histories and events from before, during, and after the adoption. Linking a series of memories together to create a cohesive story has been an exhilarating and daunting exercise. I started the project because I wanted my son to know the family he should have always been part of. As I proceeded, I experienced a new version of me, one who now understands the multi-faceted answers to a question I had long avoided asking myself: How could I possibly have given away my first child?

Some memories, even the ones very far in my past, are still astonishingly present to me, vibrantly etched as if on a pane of glass in my mind. Those moments flowed easily onto my pages. Other memories, even some that are relatively recent, are much murkier. I reimagined those delicately, filling in details I didnt quite remember such as the time of day, what I would have been wearing, what songs may have been playing on the radio, what words filled the conversations.

I aimed for accuracy when locating my experiences, and those of my family, in the social and cultural contexts of my municipal, national, and international communities. In doing so, I often felt like a detective, researching the past to frame the progress of my life. Many times my research uncovered historical nuggets that brought memories long-submerged floating to the surface of my mind: the Winnipeg flood of 1966, the smell of the St. Boniface Cathedral on fire, the words of Randy Bachmans haunting song Undun resonating in my head. I used those recovered memory fragments to put muscle, sinew, and flesh on the bones of my stories. This is what literary memoir does: create again, as true to the moment as possible according to the resources available to the writer.

Why tell this very personal story? A number of reasons come to mind. The obvious one is because of its relevance to the complicated history of adoption in North America. The closed adoption process that was predominant from the end of World War II until the late 1970s affected, and continues to affect, thousands and thousands of North Americans, whether they are from birth families or adoptive families. Moreover, I wanted to explore how an ordinary family like mine, a family who celebrated the arrival of each and every child, could have let one of their own go, supposedly never to be thought about, heard from, or spoken of again. My personal perspective deepened as I realized that many, many families had and have hidden stories like this, stories that usually remain untold.