In 1946, being adopted was a social curse and a lifelong sentence. I was born that year, but not to prosperous business owners, Bill and Cloteel Wilson as I had thought. When I was six weeks old, they brought me to their rural Kentucky town, and I would not know I wasn’t theirs until I was in the sixth grade. A disgruntled classmate announced during recess that I as adopted. Even though shocked, I did not have the nerve to confront my parents, who could be quite volatile. For the next forty years, my life was one performance after another, and I played their daughter well. I struggled with thoughts of my birth mother, wondering why she had given me up, and if I had siblings elsewhere. Was she a tramp, a prostitute, or a victim of incest or rape? No doubt, I was illegitimate, and no one wanted to be the illegitimate child of anyone. My friends knew I was adopted, but when I ask them, they would tell me nothing. They did not want to cause trouble in my home. My dad was a kind business owner, but he was also a powerful man and one most people found intimidating. My mother was not much different. No one would ever think of asking them where they “got” me, including me. Many other secrets, rumors, and speculations about my birth emerged over the years, and in time, I would find out the truth. It would come in the form of a phone call late one night from an unlikely source.
Adoptee Author: Connie Wilson
Author: Carol Perkins
Publication Year: 2016
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