As I positioned myself on a mat on the floor, I bowed and trembled like a dashboard dog. How I longed for Spencer’s optimism. He was blessed to be so open and so free.
Rinpoche’s translator sat on a mat next to me. Her name was Anne and she was from Texas, a scholar at Rice University who devoted her adult life to translating the work of great Tibetan masters.
Next to her, I felt myself becoming that much more tiny and insignificant. Given my first inclination, I would have put my head down on the floor and cried. Instead, I just sat there and waited for my sentence—as if Rinpoche were my judge.
Afternoon sun fell through the western windows; its warmth spread across my back.
Anne told Rinpoche I had done twenty-five thousand prostrations and would be done with Ngondro right on schedule.
Rinpoche did the double thumbs up motion, which he had learned from his American friends. It was funny, that thumbs up, but I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t even smile.
“Rinpoche is pleased,” Anne said. “He says you are a very diligent, hard-working student.”
Diligent? Hard working? Okay, this was a good beginning.
Rinpoche became serious and cleared his throat. He spoke in Tibetan and I flipped open my notepad. Anne leaned over and said I couldn’t write.
In fact, our meeting was sacred and private. I was not to repeat anything—even the questions he would ask. My writing, my note pad and the little mechanical pencil I carried everywhere—my only devices of security—were gone. I had to rely on my mind, my memory, and my heart. Even though none of these had me failed me before, I lost all faith and became defined by fear.
Rinpoche asked a series of questions related to Buddhism and to meditation practice, things about Buddhist theory—of which I knew the answers—but he told me I couldn’t respond. He said I needed to go think instead. He wanted me to come back with the answers later.
Did I mention I wanted to put my head down and cry?
I scurried out of our meeting, left Tylanni’s house, and hiked down the treacherous mountain road as the heat of the day rolled sweat down my spine.
I needed to be away from witnesses and my teachers. I needed to go off alone and cry—yet again.
When I was a good distance away from the house and any possible spectators, I stopped walking and the let the tears fall. They weren’t the monster tears of three years earlier—the Tara tears that constituted a lifetime of unknown grief. These were tears of defeat.
I READ A book once by an American man who claimed he had experienced the transcendent state—enlightenment. He wrote, “There were a few moments of apprehension as the Self died.”
This Self, described as “dying,” felt like an O-ring on the space shuttle—something that fell away when it was no longer needed and yet necessary for the initial lift-off into the nongravity state.
I underlined the passage and began to study the Self, which is defined as a complete and individual personality, especially one that somebody recognizes as her or her own and with which there is a sense of ease.
In Jungian theory, the Self is the totality of the psyche, the coherent whole symbolized by the circle (mandala), which pulls together the conscious and unconscious mind and integrates the personality.
I had to admit that I did not recognize my Self with a sense of ease. I did not feel that I had a solid container that held a coherent personality or a total psyche either. My dreams were filled with stories of being lost in buildings, taking wrong turns on unknown roads, missing flights, and losing my car. During the daylight hours, there was a lack of continuity in my thinking and even in my actions. I had a stop-start quality that I could not seem to control and this quality was tied to a bundle of complex and confusing emotions—primarily grief—but if I pushed to look more deeply, there was also a good share of anger too.
Initially, I believed my condition was the result of the many traumas of my past—the deaths, the sexual assaults, the terrors, the lies, and the betrayals. But I had examined all of these experiences with microscopic attention. I had written books, seen therapists, and studied. Certainly, through conscious attention to myself, I should have been able to heal; yet my inner Self wasn’t intact, and I had proved this truth—once again—in the meeting with Rinpoche. I was—outside of my own control—tearing myself down.
Why?
What was wrong with me?
As I looked into the valley that held The Pure Land, tears rolled down my cheeks. I had seen into the nature of my own mind and knew I was not moving forward, despite my years of hard work. I was not strong enough to face apprehension, and even fear, and then pass through it. I was nowhere near the transcendent state. Being in service to The Pure Land and to Tylanni were not taking me where I needed to go either. Yet if Tylanni, these Buddhist teachings, and enlightenment weren’t enough to bring me wholeness and peace, what else could there be?
The wind blew up the ridge and through the pine forest—the sound as big as a tidal wave. I faced the western sky, now ribboned with gold and pink light from the setting sun, and I had no answers to my own questions. Not one.
I pushed my tears away and continued down the rocky mountain trail, feeling weary beyond my years. All I wanted was to go home and be with my kids.
TWENTY
HOME, AT LAST
SPENCER AND JOSEPHINE played in the hot tub out back, and I was at my desk, reading and responding to emails. Busy work.
Jo cried, “Mom-meee.”
I went to the open window, just steps from my desk, and leaned out. Jo was standing in the tub, pointing one long arm at Spencer. She wore only a pair of cupcake panties. Total little girl exposure with long legs, knobby knees, and a proudly exposed flat chest.
“He’s splashing ... ” Jo began.
“... I didn’t. I swear,” Spencer interrupts. His expression held innocence.
“Why is she soaking wet?” I asked.
Jo was drenched, her face still dripping.
“Well, maybe a little bit... ” he admitted.
While Spencer was caught off guard, she splashed him back.
Spencer sputtered, taking up the role of victim Jo had left behind.
“Did you see that? Did you see what she did? ”
I just shook my head, rolling my eyes. These people were so crazy and funny.
“Please don’t fight,” I said. “I’ll get into the tub with you guys in a second.”
Spencer, outraged, did a huge splash back at Jo and the whole thing began again.
“MOM!” Jo yelled.
“Spencer! Enough! Both of you,” I said. “I’m coming. Sixty seconds. Count so I can hear you.”
They started counting, loud—one, two, three—and I sailed back to my desk to look at the last email, which was from an adoption organization in Virginia. It was an invitation to speak at their annual meeting. The author of the email had been trying to find me through my publisher and had just found my website.
“Ten, eleven, twelve,” they counted.
I read and then reread the invitation.
Adoption? Why would I want to talk to anyone about adoption?
“Twenty-five, twenty-six ...”
I typed fast: I am not an expert on adoption. Many apologies. Good luck.
I hit the send button and raced down the steps, pulling off my clothes as I went. Under my jeans and top, I wore a bathing suit—like some kind of super hero, ready for action! I tossed my clothes on a chair in the dining room and jogged out back.
“Sixty!” they both said at the same time.
Crisis averted.
I NO LONGER pushed myself to be in service to Tylanni or to travel the great distance to The Pure Land for retreats. It was just too exhausting and too expensive to live bisected between being Jennifer Lauck and Jampel Sherab.
I did continue my meditation practice, though. I had made a commitment to complete my Ngondro and I was not going to quit—no matter what.
I completed the practice right on schedule
—done in the two years requested by Rinpoche—and savored the accomplishment in the solitude of my bedroom. On my last prostration, a poster of Tara fell down and broke across my altar. Water bowls tipped over, a crystal shattered, and I stood there—panting and sweating—while I stared at the impossible scene that marked prostration 108,000.
It was like some message from the gods or the deities or the higher forces of the universe. I thought, I am not alone. I had never been alone, not like I thought I had been, and this realization had me on my knees as if I had witnessed a miracle.
Ngondro had been my Mt. Everest, my Tour de France, my English Channel crossing. And I had done it. Moreover, I had done it and something bigger than me had said, “Yes, you did it!”
MY EVENING WITH the kids fell along the lines of our established routine—Jo, Spencer, and me. Play, homework, and dinner.
We clustered together on the sofa and I read Judy Moody to Jo and Harry Potter to Spencer. While I read, Spencer drew an excavation exhibition into a crystal cave far under the surface of the earth. Jo drew princesses who held flowers in their outstretched hands. They continuously interrupted me to show off their creations and I told them how wonderful and talented they were. They both shimmered with the attention and the praise.
AFTER THE PHYSICAL exertion of Ngondro, I opted to take a quiet and relaxing Qi Gong class at a nearby college of natural medicine. Qi Gong was a welcome change to those damn prostrations but even more welcome was the teacher—a tall Midwestern man with red hair and a red beard. He was calm, peaceful, and fantastically beautiful. Now there was a man to rest your eyes on.
Upon closer inspection, I saw he was also married and that was just as well. I wasn’t ready for a relationship—yet.
AFTER THE CHILDREN fell asleep, I went to my office to check my computer. A response had come from the Virginia adoption organization. The writer insisted that as an adoptee, I was the ideal speaker for their annual event.
Cricket song whined through the open window and the glow of the computer lit up my face in the darkened room.
The amount of money she offered was staggering. I thought, You’re a fool to pass up a paying gig, Jennifer!
But adoption? What could I say that would mean anything? I knew nothing about adoption other than the fact that I had been adopted—twice—and in my own opinion, adoption was not a great choice. I also knew, given a preference, I would not adopt a child. No way. But these were my experiences and my opinions. They were not flushed out with any deep thought or consideration. Frankly, I didn’t really want to think about adoption at all.
I sat in the dark of my office for a long time, considering my options.
IT TOOK A few weeks but I added up several hours of conversation with the directors, organizers, and promoters who worked with that Virginia adoption organization.
I tried to understand how I could contribute. I asked questions and conducted interviews. I discovered that none of the people who managed adoptions for this group had been adopted. None of them had experienced mother-loss of any sort either.
This seemed incredible. I would have thought that the first order of business for those who handled adoptions would be empathy garnered by direct experience. How can one know the power of mother-loss unless they too have lost a mother?
I was driven to read many books on adoption, B. J. Lifton’s Journey of the Adopted Self, Jean Strauss’s Birthright, Florence Fisher’s The Search for Anna Fisher. I even called one of the authors, Nancy Verrier, who had written the books Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self.
Once I got Nancy Verrier on the phone—in a kind of informal interview—I asked what she would tell people if she were giving the talk. Nancy was quick to offer her own wisdom—garnered from years of working with adoptees, first mothers, and adoptive parents: “Tell them to have empathy for the children in their care. They are grieving a terrible loss of the mother and of identity. Tell them to not expect gratitude from these children. They have no gratitude to give. Tell them to read my book and other books by experts.”
As she spoke, I knew what I would say in Virginia. Her words became my speech.
When the interview was over, Nancy and I continued to talk. It turned out she was also a therapist, and after I had told her my personal story, she asked, “Have you ever explored the possibility of finding your birth mother?”
“No,” I said, but then I stopped. I swallowed a lump that had formed in my throat. “Well, actually,” I continued, “that’s not true. I did search for her but that was a long time ago ...”
TWENTY-ONE
FAVORITES
IN AN ODD TWIST OF FATE, the beautiful Midwestern Qi Gong instructor was not so married after all. In fact, he was in the midst of a divorce from a long-dead marriage. His children were grown. His wife was engaged to another man.
Amen!
I was bold. I told him to call me. “You know, if you want,” I added, in order to show the proper respect.
He called right away.
A first date proved what I already knew. He was soft spoken, gentle, kind, and steady. A good man.
I didn’t believe such a man would be possible for me. I just couldn’t have imagined it, and yet, here he was.
Within a few weeks, he became a fixture in our lives.
His name was Roger.
Josephine called him Rogert. Spencer called him Rog. I called him Rogelio.
Rogelio was from Cleveland and was related to Kurt Vonnegut. He taught classic Chinese medicine and studied Tibetan Buddhism. He was a brilliant thinker with a doctorate in acupuncture. He was also fluent in many languages—Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish. When he spoke to me in Spanish, my knees went weak.
I was tentatively happy with Rogelio, sharing my children and our routine. He came to our house for time in the hot tub and dinners of mac and cheese. He danced in the kitchen with Jo and helped Spencer with his math homework. He talked to Steve with respect and Steve even said he liked him. “He’s a different kind of dude,” Steve said. “Isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “He is a different kind of dude.”
WHEN ROGELIO SAID he loved me, I was suspect. I told myself—as a ploy to undo the couple we were becoming—that we were doomed to bad timing. He had to manage the complexities of his divorce and I was deep in therapy with Nancy on the question of my own adoption, a process that was emotional and intense. We were digging into unexplored terrain that left me sad and often in a state of deep shock.
I told Rogelio, right up front, I believed myself too unstable for such a good man. “Just ask Steve,” I advised.
Rogelio, not easily swayed, said he found me quite stable, thank you very much. He also volunteered to be part of a few telephone meetings with Nancy. He wanted to understand. He wanted to help.
Nancy told Roger that I would test him—try to push him away—it was standard procedure for adoptees. “She has been abandoned by her mother at birth. It is a loss that goes deep.”
Nancy encouraged Roger to read everything he could about adoption and to be prepared for a rocky ride, in the event I searched for my birth family.
“Reunions are very emotional,” she warned. “Get ready.”
I was sure the therapy with Nancy would be our breaking point but Rogelio said he wasn’t going anywhere. He promised to stay at my side—no matter what.
ADOPTION BOOKS PILED up around my house and I read bits from each one. They contained testimonies, research, charts, data, and evidence. I talked to experts on the phone and combed the Internet.
As I moved closer to the idea of searching for my birth family, I felt hooked by an odd and binding loyalty to Bud and Janet. I told myself that to search would be a betrayal to their memory.
This belief expressed itself as a form of combativeness directed at Nancy. “What is the point of searching for my mother?” I demanded. “What will I gain?”
Nancy—ever patient—said I would gain an identity.
“I have an identity,” I insist
ed. “I know who I am.”
Nancy said no, I didn’t know who I was and then she had me answer a series of questions.
Q: What is your favorite color?
A: I like lots of colors.
Q: What is your favorite food?
A: Oh, I like so many kinds of food.
Q: What’s your favorite ice cream?
A: Well, sometimes I like mint chocolate chip but chocolate is good too. I don’t know. I really don’t have a favorite. I don’t even like ice cream.
Q: What is your favorite tree, flower, book?
A: There is no way I could possibly choose. There are so many.
Q: Political affiliation?
A: None.
WHILE THIS WAS hardly a definitive test of identity, I found it odd I was so evasive. When it came to the children, I had no end of confidence. I could tell Nancy that Jo loved pink and Spencer loved Red. Jo’s favorite food? Meatballs and mac and cheese. Spencer went for sushi, every single time. Jo loved cookie dough ice cream. Spencer only ate caramel swirl from Baskin-Robbins.
Yet I couldn’t tell her what I would choose or what I would have chosen as a child.
I thought I struggled with a fragmented Self but Nancy was showing me that I actually lacked a Self. There was no “I” in “me” and her questions finally pinned me down and brought me face to face with the horrible truth.
I should have been relieved because finally there was someone in this world who could help me, but I wasn’t. I was defensive and furious. I threw the stupid test in the garbage, but not before wadding it into a tiny, crumbled ball.
Nancy called this reaction progress.
She said we were getting to the heart of the matter.
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