BJ Lifton Remembered

In the 1990s, I became very involved in the adoption world. It is a time where I was allowed to think about being adopted. One of the seminal books about the adoptee experience was Betty Jean Lifton's book, Lost & Found:: An Adoption Experience. Why not everything in the book rang true to me, there were parts that really spoke to me and I was always grateful for her books being out there for adoptees and those who love them. I especially responded to her description of adopted persons feeling in limbo.

When I worked on Voices of Adoption, I made sure people knew about her books. She dug deep to give adoptees a vocabulary to describe what we are feeling and thinking. It was consoling to have someone give us permission to think about things we as adoptees were told we shouldn't even think about.

In my work in Voices of Adoption, I know that BJ's books were a lifeline for generations of adopted persons.

At the turn of the century, I went to Ethics in Adoption conference with Ron Morgan and I was able to meet BJ in person. She was just the most lovely lady. I didn't agree with her when she discussed the adoptee syndrome, but it was just a thrill for me to be able to speak with her.

After I left the adoption movement, I kept in touch with almost all the folk from the adoption world on Facebook. I was lucky to have BJ Lifton as a Facebook friend where she would share her life with her dear companions, Jingly and Maui. Through them she would offer her wise opinion on current events. They would always make me smile and think. When her dear Maui was thought lost out in the wild this Summer, we all held our breath until she found Maui in a cabinet. Her updates showed her incredible humor and humanity.

This morning I found out this wonderful lady passed away last night.  We are all huddling together online today in shock and in sadness that she is no longer here. We have her books, but we will miss her caring, passion, and wisdom. Rest in Peace well BJ.

Goodbye Kurt

At Fourteen years old I had an enormous crush on Jesus. I went to Church services and the Sunday school for teens every Sunday without my parents even asking me. The Presbyterian Church was the biggest church in Menlo Park, California. If you were a pre-teen looking to do exciting things in this sleepy town the Presbyterians could provide you with prayer camps, field trips, and teen groups where you can meet boys outside of school without making your parents nervous. One of my best-friends would put notes in my bible marking her favorite bible passages.

My parents refused to have me baptised as a baby or young child. My mother was a catholic-Jew and my dad, a self-proclaimed Atheist. So at fourteen, I got baptised along side my friend and later we would joke in our twenties that baptism really didn't turn out how we expected. She turned into a hard-core New York business-girl and I was a hippie-chick.



It was as soon as I got baptised that the spell began to be broken. This church told me that my catholic mother was going to hell. A christian youth leader declared to me that she didn't care if there was a nuclear war because Jesus was going to save her. Genuinely shocked and disturbed, I told her off. At prayer camp, I was the only one not to sob hysterically when giving myself to Jesus, which made me feel very awkward being there alone with sobbing teens. Then I realized that a lot of the kids in my teen Sunday school were not very nice people. I discovered that the nicest kids were not going to Church or were of a different faith. To me, they actually lived how I thought Jesus would want us to live. I became adrift being a Christian without a church at the age of 15 or 16. I discovered Bertrand Russell's agnostic writings and skipped Spanish to discuss philosophy at a park near the Menlo Park library.



Then I found Vonnegut.



"People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God." - Vonnegut



An elder brother of another best-friend had been allowed to do a term paper on his books and I heard Vonnegut was cool since his books had been banned. I love banned books. Vonnegut's humanism spoke to me and was a perfect match for my teen angst over humanity. He was like this uncle who pulled you aside and showed you the lay of the land and showed you a different way to look at the world with all its blemishes and beauty.



"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything." - Vonnegut



I got his humor.



Life is full of asterisks.



When I was travelling through Europe I was reading "Jailbird" on a double-decker bus at the age of Eighteen. Since then there have been other authors and a growing sophistication that being a follower of Christ doesn't need a church and doesn't mean I cannot also be a free-thinker. I still dig Jesus, but we have a more mature relationship.



It has been a long time since I have read Kurt's books. I have most of his books on my book shelf and I will have to crack them open again.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has made this world a better place because of his writing and of who he was as a man. His passing makes me sad, but I can bring him back by reading his words. How lovely.



Goodbye Kurt.

"If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who." -- "Cat's Cradle"

Saying Goodbye

[The above photo is a picture of our cats Molly and Chompski. Chompski is the orange one on the right.]



We got our cat, Chompski, along with his sister, Molly, in May 1994 as five week old kittens. Their litter was abandoned in a barn in Marin County and rescued. We originally only wanted one cat and was leaning toward just getting his sister, but her orange tabby brother collapsed on top of her and looked so cute.



We named our cats after Noam Chomski and Molly Ivins, the authors we were reading at the time.

Chompski was the cat that for a long time thought he was a dog. You could throw a bottle cap down the hall and he would play fetch. Of the two cats, he would be the one who would climb on your lap and stay there. Chompski would make us sit on the edge of our chairs because he love sitting behind us. He slept at the foot of our bed, except for last night.

Over the years Chompski tended to have more bowel problems than his sister. In the past month or two he wouldn't eat or throw up what he was eating, he got very skinny. We tried medication and all kinds of different food to see what he would eat. We even tried baby food and fresh shrimp. We knew he was on the decline, but when my hubby found him this morning passed away it hit us hard.

Chompski was a good cat and we will miss him.

Saying Goodbye

[The above photo is a picture of our cats Molly and Chompski. Chompski is the orange one on the right.]



We got our cat, Chompski, along with his sister, Molly, in May 1994 as five week old kittens. Their litter was abandoned in a barn in Marin County and rescued. We originally only wanted one cat and was leaning toward just getting his sister, but her orange tabby brother collapsed on top of her and looked so cute.



We named our cats after Noam Chomski and Molly Ivins, the authors we were reading at the time.

Chompski was the cat that for a long time thought he was a dog. You could throw a bottle cap down the hall and he would play fetch. Of the two cats, he would be the one who would climb on your lap and stay there. Chompski would make us sit on the edge of our chairs because he love sitting behind us. He slept at the foot of our bed, except for last night.

Over the years Chompski tended to have more bowel problems than his sister. In the past month or two he wouldn't eat or throw up what he was eating, he got very skinny. We tried medication and all kinds of different food to see what he would eat. We even tried baby food and fresh shrimp. We knew he was on the decline, but when my hubby found him this morning passed away it hit us hard.

Chompski was a good cat and we will miss him.

Goodbye Molly

I named my cat after her, since I was reading her book, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" at the time.

Molly was unapologetically liberal. She was funny, brutally honest, folksy, and had a lot of heart. She was a woman and a political pundit/reporter. It was a joy to read what was on her mind. It makes me sad that she passed away -- that her wonderfully gutsy voice is forever silenced.

I will always remember her hilarious Ross Perot stories from when she covered him in her home state. When I read "Shrub : The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush" she really did sum up the man who was to become our president as a man whose life was checkered with failure only to have his father and his friends bail him out time after time. We were warned.

Molly, you will be missed.