late that afternoon, i followed her in my car over to herkimer where i was to meet her mother, nephews, aunts and uncles. when we arrived, a mob of people emerged from the house, running toward me and suddenly they were all clinging to me for what felt like an eternity. my god, that was weird. so uncomfortable.
i also was able to meet her father who lived not far from the house where we were stationed for dinner. her father was nice, but most definitely the least interested of all my newly found relatives.
back at my new grandmother's house, we all had dinner and i met my little half brother, who was 6 months old at the time. i've always loved babies, and i noticed how very little patience sally had with JJ right away. at first, i blamed it on nerves, but the longer i watched, the more i saw her frustration grow into what i now classify as plain disgust, as if he were an interruption. an interruption in her life, just as i would later figure out i was. again.
suddenly, i found myself torn between a primal instinct of needing her, to the most foreign, out of touch feeling i could have imagined. i simply couldn't understand how i could feel such........disconnect.
i needed and wanted her to belong to me, and i felt the same need to belong to her. why didn't she act like she knew me? why was i so unfamiliar to her? how could she have carried me around, literally, for 9 months and now she has zero connection? why doesn't she need me????? how can she be so uninterested in us having a connection?
each time we met was more awkward and unsettling as the time before. up to that point in my life, i can't say i knew any other woman who had shown so little regard for her own child. i watched her move through her days with no care or concern for anyone, including her little boy.
devastating. simply, utterly devastating.
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