Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:08] Today is going to be the last day that I talk about my adopted daughters.
[00:00:16] And it is a struggle for me because I jumped into my relationship with my full heart.
[00:00:27] So it's. It's heartbreaking, but it's also a relief at the same time.
[00:00:35] Part of the reason why I'm going to talk about my daughters is because there's. I'm not the only mother out there that is struggling with their daughters.
[00:00:47] And I just wanted to relay to you what I did and how I was finally able to move beyond the hurt.
[00:01:00] I don't know really what happened. I think, you know, when they first came to the United States, of course they were.
[00:01:10] They didn't speak English, and they were very skeptical about us.
[00:01:16] As a matter of fact, I think they called us the devil.
[00:01:19] We had to call our adoption agency to find out what they were saying to us. We didn't even know.
[00:01:27] So it was a challenge for them. They were seven and nine, and to be with two people ripped out of their own country.
[00:01:39] Their father was still there, but their father was unable to care for them. They didn't have any contact with any of their other relatives. And after they left there, all their friends.
[00:01:54] The oldest one had been in school for two years, and so she had relationships with her teachers and her schoolmates.
[00:02:03] So you.
[00:02:05] You're being adopted by two older parents.
[00:02:09] I had just turned 44. I was 43, essentially, and my husband was 39, on his way to 40. So we were older parents to begin with. Another adjustment for them because they were used to being around younger parents. The foster people that had them were significantly younger than us.
[00:02:36] And when we went to pick the girls up, the grandfather, who was also living with them, basically claimed out loud, you're old.
[00:02:47] Why would you take them?
[00:02:49] And so, I mean, from both ends, there were a lot of challenges right out of the gate. And understandably, I tried so hard.
[00:03:01] But you have to remember, we were living in rural Maine, so I tried really, really hard to see if I could find a Romanian translator. I went through Catholic charities, but there was nobody, nobody at all. And I was really lucky that I was able to get the English as a Second Language teacher to help out with us.
[00:03:28] So I would say the first year or two was kind of a struggle.
[00:03:35] And, you know, we were older, we were kind of set in our ways. My husband and I had already been married 10 years, so it was such a huge change for us. We were used to coming and going and doing as we please. I remember one of the things that was such a change for me is we would always get a Christmas tree and put it up in our family room.
[00:03:57] Well, they wanted, they took all of the old Christmas cards that I saved from the previous year before and they put all the Christmas cards on the tree and they put four fruit on the tree. So I'm trying to be accommodating because that's not what I'm used to. And I want them to feel comfortable. But it was hard on me too. It really was hard on me.
[00:04:24] Somewhere along the line though, they started to see that I was their biggest fan. I was their supporter. We were rooting for them to be successful. We gave them every opportunity that we could. We traveled with them, I took them to Disney twice.
[00:04:44] I went to Nashville with them. I went to Madison, Wisconsin with them.
[00:04:52] I went on their, we went to every single one of their cross country meets.
[00:04:58] So we tried to participate as much as we could. We taught, we're in constant contact with a lot of their teachers.
[00:05:08] We thought things were pretty good.
[00:05:12] I would say the change came when we sent them to college.
[00:05:19] So college was not easy.
[00:05:22] I wanted them to go to community college.
[00:05:26] I remember when the girls were in the fifth grade, when Georgie, the oldest one, was in the fifth grade.
[00:05:34] Her teacher said to me, she's absolutely brilliant, but you will never know what she doesn't know until she becomes an adult.
[00:05:46] And I've thought about that statement so many times.
[00:05:50] What did she mean by that?
[00:05:53] Well, what we found out when it came to college, I wanted him to go to community college. My husband wanted, wanted him to go to a four year college.
[00:06:04] He and I had both gone to a community college, but we both went back and got our bachelor's degree later on. And then subsequently I went and got my master's degree.
[00:06:17] He thought it was too much work and he wanted them to be able to go through the four year college and then just get on with their life.
[00:06:30] I felt like they weren't really understanding still of a lot of things that were going on.
[00:06:37] I mean, I was trying to get the oldest one to apply for scholarships. She didn't understand any of that process whatsoever at all.
[00:06:46] So there were just, those are the things, the things that we just take for granted, little things that they really didn't have any understanding about.
[00:06:58] So the community college would have been a good way for them to get started. But I did not win that battle.
[00:07:07] And so we ended up sending them to a four year college. I Remember when we drove the oldest one down to college?
[00:07:15] I cried the whole entire way.
[00:07:18] I've heard that mothers cry when they take their kids to, to college.
[00:07:24] And believe me, my heart was breaking. And I was fearful too.
[00:07:29] I mean, not that she wasn't going to be fine, but that she was going to change, right? And I was relishing the relationship that I had had with her.
[00:07:44] When she went away to college, the youngest one definitely struggled.
[00:07:50] She had never been away from her sister and she had a lot, a lot of challenges at that time. And even though we tried so hard to get her help, she really did not want us to help her and she just shut down.
[00:08:08] So the day came when she graduated from high school and again, my husband put her into a four year college. We did go to another college that was about three hours from here just to look at it with her. But I'm like, no way are you going that far away.
[00:08:26] So we got her to enroll in the same college that her sister was in.
[00:08:31] And her sister by now was an RA on her floor, which was really good.
[00:08:36] And her sister could be her roommate. I think I thought I was doing the right thing, but probably not.
[00:08:45] I think they needed some time apart.
[00:08:49] They had some challenges there. I mean, the oldest one had been there for two years. She's a little bit more outgoing, although I can't say that completely. I would say there they had differences in how they approach life. Let's just put it that way, that makes the most sense.
[00:09:09] So they did struggle with the whole situation of being there and being roommates.
[00:09:22] The youngest one is an extrovert, but she starts out as an introvert. So she didn't even leave her room to go and get food until the last semester of college. We had paid for the meal plan, then she had decided that she wanted to go into ROTC because she had a boyfriend.
[00:09:44] I didn't think it was a good idea. I had been in the military. But she was going to do what she wanted to do. All those struggles that you go with when your kids are becoming adults, I mean, I think some of it is I have a little bit of a control issue maybe, I don't know, I try not to, but I definitely wanted to steer them in the best direction that I thought would work for them and they didn't want to have anything to do with it.
[00:10:19] So that, you know, that's how it goes.
[00:10:23] In the meantime, the oldest one graduated, she came back home and she was living with us. She finally got a job and she got a Job where my husband was worked and that seemed to be going okay.
[00:10:40] And the youngest one graduated a couple years later and then she moved back home.
[00:10:50] And I think the youngest one was hoping that she was going to be getting married with her boyfriend who was now going to be active duty in the army, and she was going to get stationed with him.
[00:11:05] She had really taken a liking to his family and really they became a priority for her more than we did. We were now on the back burner.
[00:11:16] So there were changes right there and struggles.
[00:11:22] And then we went through a lot, a lot, a lot of drama when my oldest one was getting married.
[00:11:30] And it was just after Covid or at the very end of COVID And when I look back on that, I think it's just wasn't gonna work. We tried so hard, but it just wasn't gonna work. And she married a man who is from a different culture as well, and his parents live with them. And that's kind of what she was used to in Romania.
[00:12:01] So it would make sense that she would gravitate towards his culture. And I think she feels much more comfortable in his culture than she did in the American culture.
[00:12:15] So she basically went with her in laws to pick out her wedding dress.
[00:12:23] And I'm telling you, it was like a dagger in the heart.
[00:12:27] I don't know, I just didn't see it coming. I should have.
[00:12:32] She kept writing me all these letters and recently I've reread a lot of them and I think the gist of the letter was, let me go free, mom. I want to have my own life now.
[00:12:46] So she kind of did give me a warning up front that our relationship wasn't going to be what I thought it was going to be. She was going to have her own life now. And if I was involved at some point, maybe if not, she was moving on.
[00:13:06] She was not very kind to me when they got married. And there were a lot of things that went on it's not even worth going into.
[00:13:16] But we didn't feel appreciated, we didn't feel respected.
[00:13:22] And then we knew right? We knew right then, like, why are we trying so hard? Because she's telling us by her actions how she feels about us.
[00:13:35] And so we ended up coming kind of to an impasse with them and. And we just realized it's not going to work. It's just not going to work.
[00:13:47] And then the other one, in the meantime ended up not getting married to her boyfriend. I think that broke her.
[00:13:56] She had put all of her eggs in one basket and then it didn't turn out the way that she had hoped it would.
[00:14:04] And she was really, really disappointed by that and hurt.
[00:14:09] And she was struggling.
[00:14:12] She moved around quite a bit. She didn't want to move back home. She wanted to have be independent, which is a good thing. I have to give her props for that.
[00:14:23] And she moved in and out of different places and the situations were not very good for her.
[00:14:30] At one point she wanted to move back home and her dad was like, no, she absolutely cannot come back home.
[00:14:37] And I struggled with that decision because of course I cared about her and I wanted to help her, but really we couldn't help her. This is her life and she had to make her life what it is.
[00:14:54] From her.
[00:14:56] I received probably the worst email or letter communication that I have ever gotten from anybody in my entire life. I mean, she said some of the worst things to me that anybody has ever said.
[00:15:14] And I cried for a long time after I got that.
[00:15:18] Of course there was no way to have a two way dialogue. So it was just this one dump of a letter and you're never going to be able to talk to me again to work it out, move on, because this is how I feel and this is why I feel. And you're basically a horrible person is what she said.
[00:15:38] So it was probably.
[00:15:44] It was another thing that was going on for me at that time. My mom had been diagnosed with cancer, so I was struggling to work full time. I'm working full time and I'm taking care of terminally ill brain tumor patients.
[00:16:03] And my mom is at my house dying of pancreatic cancer.
[00:16:09] And I was struggling to do the right thing, but I was being pulled in too many directions.
[00:16:18] I could have taken a leave of absence from work with no pay and we would have really struggled with that because we had built a new house.
[00:16:29] So that was not really a good option for us. I talked to my husband about it and so we did get hospice involved. And then my brother was coming down to see her and I know I talked about that.
[00:16:43] So finally she went to live with him.
[00:16:48] My oldest daughter moved into an apartment. We encouraged her to be independent, although she didn't really want to go into an apartment.
[00:16:59] And then my mom passed away.
[00:17:04] And then like less than a year and a half later my brother died and then one of my favorite aunts died. So I went through a lot of drama and stress during that time.
[00:17:20] I'm not sure I really handled myself well. I think actually going to work is what saved me.
[00:17:28] But was I running away?
[00:17:30] There's the question, right? Was I running away from everything else that was going on?
[00:17:37] You know, you look back and you always think, oh, I could have done this better. Oh, I could have done that better. Why didn't I try this? Why didn't I do that?
[00:17:46] But there was a lot of things that went on that were so hurtful, and I just can't look back at that anymore. I got to move forward.
[00:18:01] So I.
[00:18:04] I think the one thing I struggled with, though, and this is really the crux of the matter.
[00:18:10] You put so much of your heart on the line, and you're just hoping for maybe a little bit in return, a little bit a glimpse of, yeah, mom, you did an okay job. It wasn't great, but I still appreciate you for what you did.
[00:18:31] So that to me would come in the way of maybe a birthday card or a Mother's Day card, even a Mother's Day text.
[00:18:41] And all of that started to go away.
[00:18:44] Like, I would just go through the holidays with zero communication.
[00:18:50] I think the oldest daughter tried a little bit more, but, like, she got me a book for my birthday that said, how not to lose your shit on your kids.
[00:19:00] And I remember thinking to myself, wow, what did I do?
[00:19:06] I. I felt like. I mean, that was such a kick in the gut. I remember thinking, wow, was I that controlling? Wow, wasn't I understanding enough? What did I do to make her feel like I was always losing my. On her?
[00:19:24] I don't really think I yelled at them very often. I'm not really like that.
[00:19:29] But I do think I can be bossy. I've been told that many times.
[00:19:34] I think some of the bossiness comes from having a strong intuition about things.
[00:19:41] Not everybody understands that.
[00:19:44] So I usually have a very strong gut level feeling when something is going to go well or when something's not going to go well.
[00:19:55] And.
[00:19:56] And I will speak out for the person if I don't think it's a good decision.
[00:20:03] And so, you know, you can imagine that comes across as bossy. I get it. I totally get it.
[00:20:10] In my older years, I've tried to be a little bit more laid back, but there are times when I still interject with my friends, much to their dismay.
[00:20:22] And, you know, they know that I have a strong intuition.
[00:20:29] But I was stuck.
[00:20:31] I was stuck and not in a good place. Not hearing from them, not being acknowledged by them. And same for my husband, too, although he handled it completely differently.
[00:20:45] And then I started hearing Mel Robbins talk. She's a famous psychologist, and she had struggled with her daughter as Well, I think she has a couple of them but one in.
[00:20:58] And she's like, she came up with that theory let them.
[00:21:04] And I thought, yeah, let them.
[00:21:08] I had to really sink into it to try and see if that was something that I was going to be able to handle. The let them thing.
[00:21:20] Can I just, just know that I did the best I could for them and then let them live out their life. Can I just walk away?
[00:21:32] I didn't want to, I'm going to be honest with you.
[00:21:36] And it was a big, big, big, big, big struggle for me.
[00:21:41] One of the things that we struggled the most with is the college which actually came back to bite us because we took out all these, excuse me, student loans for them.
[00:21:57] And my husband thought with the understanding they would know that they were going to be making payments on their student loans.
[00:22:06] Well, after the oldest one got married, boy was there a lot of pushback and her husband didn't want to assume her college debt.
[00:22:15] And I understand that.
[00:22:18] We tried to work it out with them but there were a lot of things that were said between us that were not good. They live an hour and 20 minutes away. They didn't want to have a face to face meeting. They wanted a zoom call. I should have known that that was gonna be not a good thing.
[00:22:36] And basically that was the end of it. She tried to call me one more time. She knew we were not at home. We had gone out east to see a friend and she called me while we were traveling. We're not gon able to talk right now. You're going to have to wait till we get home. And the next thing you know we get an email that she's not going to be paying the student loan and that was the end of it.
[00:23:01] And then about three or four months later we got an email from her sister that said she was never going to pay for her student loan either.
[00:23:09] So this is one of those situations where no good deed goes unpunished.
[00:23:17] And of course I wanted to say a million times to my husband, I didn't want to send him to a four year school, but he already knows. He knows.
[00:23:30] And then we did other things too, like if they weren't doing good in college with their classes, like we should have taken the youngest one right out of college.
[00:23:39] But we're just trying to encourage her to keep going and you know, college isn't easy.
[00:23:46] So we thought that if she keeps going and she graduates, it's still going to open doors for her. But we were wrong about that too.
[00:23:55] So we made A lot of mistakes with the whole college thing. And then it came back to bite us. And now here we are at a time where we should be enjoying all the fruits of our labor from how hard we worked, but instead we're paying off college loans, which is not great. I'm not going to lie about it.
[00:24:19] So the let them thing is good, but it's not that easy for us because we still have this financial commitment that we have to think about every day, at least monthly, when we're making the payment. Right? I mean, it hangs over our head. I'm not going to deny it.
[00:24:41] I didn't know what to do. I like the Mel Robbins theory. Let them. But I feel bitter about the student loan.
[00:24:51] So I was struggling with that, too.
[00:24:54] I decided that I was going to go see a card reader. She's an astrologer and a tarot card reader.
[00:25:06] Now, I know this part isn't for everyone, and I get it, but some people go to a therapist.
[00:25:15] Some people have sisters they can talk to.
[00:25:19] I have my friends who I did talk to, but how long do they want to hear me complaining about things? Really? Not forever. I gotta move on.
[00:25:29] So I finally decided to call my astrologer, and I said, I got to get. I've got something that I need to work through, and I'm hoping you're going to help me.
[00:25:40] So I get there and she said, don, what's bothering you?
[00:25:45] And I told her the whole entire situation related to my adopted daughters and what had gone on. I told her about the let them theory, and is that the right thing really to do? Just let them. Why don't they get to be held accountable? Isn't talking like a scorn woman, right?
[00:26:07] And she's like. I said, every, you know, Christmas goes by, holidays go by, my birthday goes by, and I'm here because now Mother's Day is coming up and I know I'm not going to hear from them.
[00:26:22] And I spend the day feeling sorry and sad and I cry.
[00:26:28] I don't want to go through my life doing that.
[00:26:33] I mean, I can let them, but what is that helping me?
[00:26:38] So she.
[00:26:40] She did a reading on me. But first she said something that really made me think.
[00:26:47] She said, dawn, why are you trying so hard to pull somebody back into your life that really doesn't want to be part of your life?
[00:27:03] And I actually said, yes, that makes so much sense.
[00:27:10] She said, people should want to be in your life because they love you and they want to be there. People don't hang on to people that don't love you, that don't appreciate you, you've got to let them go.
[00:27:29] So that made the most sense to me of anything I heard.
[00:27:33] I guess it is part of let them. But really the point is, why are you trying so hard to bring someone into your life that is toxic to you, that's not going to appreciate you, that's going to make you feel sad?
[00:27:49] You're sad without them, but you have possibilities without them. With them in your life, you're going to continue to be sad.
[00:28:01] So she did tell me one other thing, and this is something that I did, and this is really what set me free.
[00:28:11] She said, you need to write a letter to them, and you need to tell them that you love them, that you had hoped that you were going to live out a life together as a family and that it didn't work out that way, but you wish the best for them and you're letting them go free and that you hope they live out a wonderful life.
[00:28:41] And then you take the letter, you. You read it almost like a prayer to God.
[00:28:48] And when you get done with the letter, you burn it.
[00:28:54] And that's exactly what I did on Mother's Day this year.
[00:28:58] I wrote a letter to them about how much I loved them, how much it was such a joy to adopt them, how much they had taught me, and how much I hoped that they had learned back from me.
[00:29:13] But the relationship had gotten to the point where it wasn't going to work anymore. And because of that, their father and I are setting them free.
[00:29:26] I burned the letter up.
[00:29:29] We watched the ashes fly away, and then that was the end of it.
[00:29:35] And really my birthday came this year, and I never even thought about them. Of course, I didn't get a birthday card. That goes without saying, right? But I never thought about them one time. Not one time.
[00:29:53] And it was like two or three days later, and I go, oh, I made it. I actually really made it. I saw that they didn't connect with me. They didn't send me a birthday card. They didn't do anything. Which was really the expected response, but it didn't really hurt anymore.
[00:30:14] It didn't really matter.
[00:30:18] So I hope this message hits women out there who are going through maybe a similar situation as me.
[00:30:32] I know my story's different because we adopted them and they're not our birth children.
[00:30:37] I sure did feel like we loved them, like we had given birth to them. We love them a lot, and letting go was not easy.
[00:30:49] But like the.
[00:30:50] The tarot card reader said to me.
[00:30:54] Why would you want to work so hard to pull someone back into your life that doesn't have you and your best interest in mind?
[00:31:09] And that's really what the truth was.
[00:31:12] And once I said those words out loud, I never looked back.
[00:31:24] Thank you for listening to my story today.
[00:31:27] I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:31:31] It's got some words of wisdom in there for people.
[00:31:35] Not that I'm an expert, obviously, but if it helps one person the way that my tarot card helped me, then I will have feel like I made a difference.
[00:31:54] Until the next time.
