I was raised by a construction worker who fixed my mothers roof. James wasraised by the neice of the couple who raised me. She couldn't have children.
Roberta and Marvin were the only people I thought of when I found myself
pregnant for the third time. My husband didn't want anymore children, and I
suspected that James wasn't his, so I didn't fight to keep him.
When I first contacted them I thought that I could give them the child that
they couldn't have any other way and I felt that I would always know where and
how my child was.
I was in horrible gut wrenching pain after they left with him. I honestly
believed that I couldn't go on without my child but everytime I thought of them
without him I couldn't see causing them this kind of greif. Especially since
they had finally accepted the fact that they wouldn't have children when I
offered them one of my own.
They never did Adopt James. I don't know if they knew it when they took him but
private Adoptions are Illegal in Michigan. I only know that they would not risk
loseing James to the "system" so they never applied.
For two year's inspite of their promisses and my pleedings I heard nothing about
my son. On Mothers Day 1984, we accidently attended the same Babtist church in
Panorama City, California. Neither of us knew that the other was in the state.
I managed to get three quick pictures and then they were gone. I wanted, right
then and there to fight her for custody but James was scared to death of me.
He clung to her like she was life itself, and I knew for the first time, that he
was not my son anymore. It would harm him irreprably to take him from them.
The next year, when they were in California for Roberta's Dad's funeral, they let
me see James again. We had a good visit but when I tried to send packages for
Christmas or his Birthday, they always came back. We got to go to Michigan when
he was 10 and they let us see him a few times in the weeks that we were there.
I thought that Roberta and I got along well. After that when I would send gifts,
they wouldn't come back.
At thirteen his parents divorced. James was removed from the only town he had
ever grown up in. All his friends and most of what he knew of as family were
gone. I sent Roberta a few angry letters and she had James answer them. That
frightened me, but when I tried to contact him at school where he could speak
freely, he hung up the phone when he heard my voice. I got a letter from him
after that asking me for no further contact. It seemed like he was being put
in the middle over every exchange so I stopped contacting them.
I have been waiting for his 18th birthday ever since. Last year they moved,
and for the first time sence he was born I do not have an address for him.
While I have had several opertunities to remove James from the situation, I
have always felt that he would only have been hurt by my doing so.
He has an interest in Computers so it has become my passion to put up website's
all over, hoping that he will see one and know that however big a mess I made of
his life, I never wanted it that way. I have always loved him and he has never
for one moment left my thoughts or my heart.
So James, one more time. We love you and Miss you.
God Bless you and all those that you love. Shannon
