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It\u2019s always amazing to me that you can know someone for years, and yet still truly know so little about them. It\u2019s one of the reasons I love doing #InHERviews with critique partners. There\u2019s always something fascinating to be learned, and often something heartbreaking to which people can relate. This certainly held true for my chat with the dynamic writing whiz, Lynne Marie.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how are the kids, Lynne? How are Kayla and Kevin?\u201d Unlike many of my critique partners, I\u2019ve had the opportunity to meet Lynne\u2019s children. Her daughter, Kayla, even performed a song for me on the piano (girl can saaaang, y\u2019all).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re good! Kayla\u2019s singing and dancing up a storm and Kevin\u2019s plotting his escape to Korea.\u201d Lynne\u2019s voice gushes a familiar proud-Mom tone. \u201cBut you know us – this is a nuthouse. I\u2019m probably one of the most constantly stressed people. People think I have it easy working from home, but I work two jobs at the same time and constantly get texts, messages, phone calls, my dog Anakin harasses me, my kids come in and interrupt me in some way… I\u2019m always riding the crazy train.\u201d Her laughter is lighthearted, and we chat a few more minutes about chaos before moving on.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo tell me about your first pivotal moment, Lynne.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cWell, probably my adoption. Being adopted is for sure what makes me ME. It\u2019s funny that you\u2019re asking this now because of Moldilocks. It\u2019s the first time I really let that part of myself into a story. I fractured the original fairytale and put it back together, just like the family in it was fractured and put back together. Moldilocks came into their life and made their family whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really cool,\u201d I say. \u201cDid you draw from your own experiences much to write this story?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSort of,\u201d Lynne says. \u201cMy parents adopted me because their life wasn\u2019t whole. My mother had seven miscarriages and wanted a child so badly. I fulfilled them, but then they had two children after adopting me. So my experience was a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow old were you when you were adopted?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was three months old when they got me as a foster child; they adopted me when I was one and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then how old were you when your first sibling was born?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was two and a half when she had my sister. I think it was hard on my parents to have an adopted child (who was very different from them) and then have two of their own (who were very like them).\u201d As someone who was raised by a stepmother who eventually had her own biological child, I understand her sentiment. But still, I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow so?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to put into words.\u201d I nod in silent agreement as Lynne pauses before she continues thinking aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it was more me who just felt different. My siblings are such clones of my parents and I felt a little like the black sheep alien child. The bad child. My parents are very good people, but I can\u2019t say that it\u2019s easy for them to understand people who are different. It was challenging to grow up in an adopted family that had their own kids. But that definitely contributed to who I am today. Growing up, I had the perception that most everything I did was bad (compared to what my brother and sister would do or how they would react). I was always the one bringing home stray pets even though we were told we couldn\u2019t have another one – things like that. But as I get older, I can see that it probably wasn\u2019t easy to be my brother or sister, either. I\u2019m a lot more\u2026flamboyant, maybe? I\u2019m very creative. Shiny. It\u2019s just the way I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you close with your siblings now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aren\u2019t terribly close, no.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you talk to your mom a lot. Are you close with her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some ways, yes, but not in other ways. But I did get much closer to her and appreciate her more after I found my birthmother. It\u2019s a complicated relationship.\u201d I laugh with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAren\u2019t they all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess they are,\u201d she agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you think adoption shaped you most, growing up?\u201d Lynne groans.<\/p>\n
\u201cUgh, not fitting in, definitely! I felt like I was always striving for a place to fit in. Always looking. Not knowing my roots gave me objectivity, though. Was I Jewish? Was I part black? I was open to any community where I might fit in. I desperately wanted to be part of a tight community. I know now that my roots aren\u2019t Jewish, but I always felt Jewish. It made me weird like that. I used to go to temple with my Jewish friends and mass with my Catholic friends and look for people who looked like me. I had soul mothers and soul sisters and people I connected with on other levels because I didn\u2019t have blood, so I found other relationships. It made me open and gave me perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still go to temple?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t because my life is crazy. But I would if I had time. I have such great memories\u2014I was in a temple production of Bye Bye, Birdie in high school. It\u2019s something that meant a lot to me to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou felt included,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah!\u201d Lynne\u2019s voice smiles. \u201cAnd I\u2019m still like that. My son will tell you, I embrace my Jewishness because Jesus was Jewish. I don\u2019t know how you can totally separate yourself from Jewish people if you\u2019re Christian. And I also believe we should respect others beliefs and what others call God as long as we believe in the same principles.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely think we\u2019d all be better off if we looked for more similarities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely. My friend Eric, who\u2019s Jewish, said, \u2018We\u2019re on the same bus. I just got off before you.\u2019\u201d She laughs at his observation. \u201cSo we have the same foundation and beginning journey. We\u2019re not so different. My journey just went to a different place. Same beginnings, same origins. I always loved that. It really spoke to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo tell me about another pivotal moment in your life,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, another part of my adoption journey was pivotal,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I was sixteen, I thought my parents were dead. I thought they\u2019d died in a car accident because that\u2019s what my adopted mother told me. That\u2019s what they were instructed to tell adopted kids back then, so they didn\u2019t feel abandoned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how did you find out they were still alive?\u201d My heart breaks as I imagine a child learning this kind of news.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was sixteen my mom kept talking about someone who found their adopted parents. I asked how it affected me and she said, \u2018Well, in case you wanted to look for yours.\u2019 I said, \u2018Why would I do that? My parents are dead.\u2019 That\u2019s when she told me they were alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat had to be incredibly confusing,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt disrespected. Lied to.\u201d Lynne\u2019s exasperation is palpable through the phone. \u201cOur relationship was strained then anyway. But then I came to find out that she had identifying information on my birth parents because the court had sent papers to her that were supposed to go elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo did she tell you who they were?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSort of. She gave me names but I only found dead ends, so I gave up for years. When the topic came up again, she told me I hadn\u2019t been searching the RIGHT name. I told her it was the spelling she\u2019d given me, but she denied it. I was so upset and had lost faith in her by then. I didn\u2019t trust she was giving me accurate information, so I decided not to do anything. But when I had my son, I changed my mind and decided to search.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did that go?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was, like, a psychic thing. Something told me to search in Boston, so I did. I looked under the last name and found my uncle. It was totally random. I called information and they wouldn\u2019t give me a phone number, so I kept calling back. Eventually I asked for a supervisor and swore I\u2019d stop calling if they just gave me a number. They kept saying they wouldn\u2019t give me a number without both a first and a last name, and I told them their rules were ridiculous. I could literally go to any phone booth in Boston if I lived there and look up any number of people with the last name Ogren. I just wanted any number at all. So eventually I wore her down and he gave me a phone number for Cecil Ogren. I called the number and said, \u2018Hi, my name is Lisa Ogren and I\u2019m looking for a branch of my family.\u2019 She was shocked. She said, \u201cYour mom is my sister-in-law, but we\u2019re not supposed to know about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me back up for a second,\u201d I say. \u201cYou mentioned that \u2018something\u2019 told you to call Boston. Where were you living at the time, and can you point to any reason that you\u2019d want to search Boston?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was from Brooklyn, but something inside told me I was from Boston. When I was growing up, we went to Maine all the time and passed by Boston. It tugged at my heart that we never went there. It was really psychic\u2026there\u2019s no explanation. Before I called, though, I verified that I was born in the five boroughs by looking up my name at the New York Public Library. I found my birth name, Lisa Ogren, in the Birth Book there, and it matched the number of my birth certificate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you found your aunt, but she said she wasn\u2019t supposed to know about you. So how did you find your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told my aunt that I understood, but I was twenty-six or twenty-seven by this time. We just kept talking and I asked her to please tell me if I had any siblings. She paused and said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry to say that your brothers aren\u2019t alive. They both had Duchenne\u2019s muscular dystrophy.\u2019 It was weird because I\u2019d always volunteered at the Special Olympics growing up and I got boys with that condition who always connected with me. It was another weird moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat must have been very hard to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Lynne admits. \u201cI always wanted to have a sibling who was like me, and here there were two, but I\u2019d never meet them in this lifetime. Anyway, I called my mother and we arranged for me to drive up to meet them\u2014they lived in Connecticut. So New Years Even I drove up with my boyfriend and we met for the first time. But my mother, in an ironic twist, was not much like me. She was just like my adoptive mother. Apparently the agency had matched up the family structure. One was Swedish, one Scottish, but they were so much alike, it was uncanny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did you feel about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was disappointed but I also felt cured of the stigma I\u2019d felt from being adopted. It made me understand that my adoptive mother was more my mother than I\u2019d realized. It healed my relationship with her a lot. In my head, I\u2019d imagined my perfect natural mother was going to be understanding and supportive. But she wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was she like?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cControlling! So controlling. And disrespectful. She had lost her little girl and now she had her back, so she used to try and make us dress the same all the time. She tried to make me go over there all the time and disrespected my adoptive parents. She called me Lisa instead of Lynne. It was terrible. I asked about my father and she told me he was a murderer\u2026she just maligned him and wouldn\u2019t give me his name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you believe her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still talk to her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d Lynne sighs. \u201cShe died this past November.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like that would create some conflicting emotions. Was that weird for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty horrible, but that\u2019s a whole different story,\u201d Lynne says. She wants to change the subject back, so I let her.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo she wouldn\u2019t tell me who my father was, and I tried. This is another weird part of the story. As a kid, I always thought my father\u2019s name was Peter Rabbit or something. So one day in the car when she was talking about her brother, my Uncle Peter, I just asked, \u2018What was my father\u2019s name, anyway?\u2019 She choked and I thought she was gonna die! So I said, \u2018My father\u2019s name was Peter, wasn\u2019t it?\u2019 Her head spun around and she asked who told me. But no one told me. It was just a hunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you able to look him up at that point?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t know anything else about him. I told her that if my father died before I got to meet him, I\u2019d never talk to her again. She got mad, but the next day my stepfather called with my father\u2019s phone number. I came to find out that the day I found her, months before, she\u2019d called him. My father had been sending money and notes to give to me, but she wouldn\u2019t pass them along. And she wouldn\u2019t give them my information.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo did you call him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did,\u201d Lynne says. \u201cHe drove from Massachusetts the next day to meet me. And the funniest thing\u2026he brought me a pink rabbit. My adoptive parents came too, and my mother couldn\u2019t believe it. I\u2019d been obsessed with rabbits my whole life and my Godfather had given me a pink rabbit just like the one he gave me. He said he thought he was being stupid for bringing it, but he just felt compelled. It was amazing. So his last name was Remick and he brought a rabbit. Who knows? So many weird things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he still alive?\u201d Lynne\u2019s sigh is sad.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe died first, one Halloween when my daughter was two. Which is such a shame because he treated my daughter Kayla like the Queen of England. It\u2019s sad he didn\u2019t get to see her grow up. I have to say I think a lot of themes from my stories\u2014not fitting in, not feeling complete\u2014stem from this.\u201d I nod in empathy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are deep-seated feelings,\u201d I say. \u201cI understand how they would spill over into your creative brain.\u201d After a moment of quiet, I ask, \u201cDo you want to talk about any other pivotal moments in your life?\u201d Lynne pauses.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy divorce was pivotal, but that\u2019s a story for a different day,\u201d Lynne says. \u201cIt broke me, but it also put me back together in a better way. I always had tons of people in my life. I don\u2019t have as many now, but those in my life are good people. I used to keep unhealthy relationships. My divorce helped me learn to walk away from people who aren\u2019t good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hear Lynne\u2019s car door close and I know it\u2019s time to wrap up the conversation. After I thank her for her time, I consider all she\u2019s been through and think about Molidlocks. In many ways, it seems that Moldilocks\u2019 story is the ideal fairytale for children awaiting adoption. An off-the-wall family feels incomplete, so they search for a child who ends up fitting perfectly into their quirky world. It\u2019s a beautiful way for Lynne to work through her own experiences, really. And it\u2019s a beautiful way to sprinkle some optimism and hope on a subject that is all-too-often dark and ignored. And honestly, I think we need a little more of that in our world.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Look for Lynne online at:<\/p>\n
Website: www.literallylynnemarie.com<\/a><\/p>\n Facebook: Lynne Marie<\/a><\/p>\n Twitter: @literally_lynne<\/a><\/p>\n Pinterest: Lynne Marie<\/a><\/p>\n And watch her Moldilocks book trailer here<\/a>!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n