The Child Has No Property

Well, when all is said and done-all is said and done.

And very little, at that.

Today arrived the pack of papers I have been-avoiding-dreading-guilty about-longing for

for the past 50 plus years.

The adoption papers.

With the house clean out in progress and Mum as barmy as the Mad Hatter most days it seemed time to put my anxiety aside and delve into the truth of the matter.

There was a decent stack, all typed (on a bad typewriter-government, eh?) on onion skin paper with a variety of seals, strings, rusted paper clips and stamps.....the kind of stamps you lick....and waiting for me to know the facts.

What I came away with was hardly reason to be so apprehensive lo' these many years.

Written in German, but with translation papers throughout, they mostly said:

Blah-blah-bladhy-blah First Party-blahdy-bloo-Second Party.....

date-date-date.......sign here.......german-german-german........

and so forth.

No givesey-backseys.

(Let the Buyer Beware!)  ;)

But here's the crux:

I am illegitimate.

(Such a word.  Happy Faerie Mash-up would have been more suitable, don't you think?)

My original name has been changed.  Not just my last name.

(Considering Foxmorton is yet another name change...and then there's Violet and Hatty and BeBe....and...well......

clearly I started the name change game early.  A rose by any other name, eh?)

The child owns no property.

(Clearly they failed to take into account those several acres of gnome woodlands. 

 I hold the deed, it's just invisible is all.  And the pirate booty goes without saying.)

I now know my birth mother's full name.

(Which is kind of scary as she doesn't know mine.  Almost like an invasion of privacy if I were to bandy it about.....which I won't. Remember, this was never about finding my parents.  Simply a burning desire to know my ancestry.  Germany.....castles.....explains much about me.

Which brings us to Nature vs. Nurture...but we can save that for another time.)

Her first name is beautiful...I think.  I'm not sure how to pronounce it.

(None of my real names were hers.  My stomach did the biggest flip upon seeing her name in 

print for the first time.)

I have no father. 

(Nor was there any mention or place on the papers to fill in a father.  But, we all know that

River Pirates consorting with faeries generally don't leave a name.....)

I know my birth mothers partial address at the time of my birth-though no mention of her birth date.

(I would have liked to know how old she was.  Do I have siblings?  I really want to know if I have siblings.)

I know her occupation at the time of her birth.

(Maid.  Which makes for a good Cinderella story I suppose.)

I have no mental defects.

(Bwah-hahahahahah!  We Germans are a funny lot!  Slipped that one right by them, eh?)

And that is all I know.

Funny.

All this time I believed these papers to hold the 

Secret to Foxmorton's Universe.

And they didn't.

And that's ok.

I grew up only knowing that both my parents were German.  My father went to great lengths to be sure some discharged officer from Boise wasn't going to knock on the door when I was 7 and create a ruckus.

(Apparently he figured it would be an inconvenient weekend trip all the way from Germany.)

And now?  Well, now I know a little more.

I'll need to think on this awhile.

This feeling of finally turning a page in my story.

And then I'll let you know what I though.

If anything.

My sincere thanks for sharing this moment with me.

xoxo

love-

~Fox