adoption – Vinden Grace

September 19, 2021

Finding out more about my birth mother – part 3

Meeting Evie’s neighbours

I confess I was quite nervous driving to meet Evie’s nearby neighbours. They apparently knew her quite well, helped her at the end, and so on, so I hoped to hear lots of stories. The mother was around our age, so early 60s, whereas Evie would have been 90 by now so I suspect they didn’t socialise as much as I had hoped. Consequently, there weren’t too many stories, especially as she didn’t speak English and we don’t (yet) speak Portuguese. Luckily, her son Marcelo was there to translate. He explained that Evie had talked about me but said that I had passed away, much easier to explain than the circumstances surrounding my birth and subsequent adoption. Marcelo said my birth-mother had felt he was like a son to her, often helping her out! I can imagine as he seemed very nice, kind and helpful. It was sweet to meet Bambi, Evie’s elderly dog who amazingly enough was still alive, albeit covered in lumps & bumps.

We pondered knocking on the door of Evie’s old house but felt that was an imposition and we could be anyone! Marcelo had to go back to work, so couldn’t hang around to act as a go-between to verify that Evie had indeed been the owner of the property, so we could have been just ‘casing the joint’! I still had a cheeky pic taken by the house….

Evie’s friends

Evie’s neighbour gave me a batch of photos, which I’ve shared with the family. A woman called Barb (Clements?) is pictured quite often and seems talented as photos of her paintings are very nice. A close friend I would imagine.

One of the pics is of a work group I believe, so they may have been Evie’s former colleagues. My next challenge to so track them down. Might be challenging after 25-30 years or more since they may have worked together!

We found out that a chap who is an actor was a good friend of Evie’s when she lived in London. He was very helpful and phoned me with some background information on my birth-mother. They had a shared love of theatre and a similar sense of humour. He sounded quite cautious and voiced his concerns over Evie’s more que sera sera attitude to life. He worried that she didn’t save much, did things on a whim, moved countries without much research, flitting from Portugal to Spain, finding she didn’t love it and moving back to Portugal, losing money in the process. Interestingly for me, Eve (my wife not my birth-mum, Evie!) and I lived part-time in Spain for 5 years but decided against buying a forever retirement home there too! Portugal also ‘spoke to us’ more than Spain. Genes will out perhaps?!

View from our apartment in Andalusia, Spain

We also met another person for lunch from whom Evie adopted a cat. Sadly, another lady who said she was good friends with Evie had to postpone meeting or chatting with us as she was diagnosed with cancer. Hope to catch up with her once she’s feeling up to it.

So, in summary, it seems that Evie was a sociable, warm-hearted, kind person who loved dogs, cats, flowers, wine & sunshine! I see so many similarities between me and my birth-mum!

May 30, 2021September 19, 2021

Finding out more about my birth mother – part two

For those who are interested and who haven’t read the first instalment on my blog of my research into the circumstances surrounding my adoption, check it out here:
https://vindengrace.com/announcements/adoption-a-tale-of-two-mothers/

Zip forward 5 months and….

The two biggest confirmations in this search to learn more about who my birth-mother, Evie or Evelyn was, were the positive power of social media and the kindness of strangers. Sometimes social media gets a bad rap but, in the main, we have found it to be positive and supportive. Divisive times such as American elections, the UK’s Brexit and the ‘pandemic’ have sadly polarised opinions, and constant negativity in the mainstream media has caused people to feel stressed, frightened and angry. The outcome or by-product of this is that folks lash out on social media (a) because they can and (b) because they’re frightened and stressed.

Staying down in the Algarve for six weeks is providing a fantastic opportunity for us to explore the area where Evie had retired to when she left the UK. We had previously found out ~ 6 months ago from my cousin where her aunt, Evie, had lived in Portugal. So we arranged to stay only about 20 minutes away from there. I posted on some niche Facebook groups, one of which was an expat group, another which is a regional group for the area near where she lived. A photograph of Evie and a little bit of background about her and why I was searching for those who knew her yielded results within an hour or two! I had lots of post ‘likes’ and people commenting that they thought they knew her or knew someone who knew her, and they would get back to me! I was really pleased and so grateful for the kindness of people who wanted to be supportive and assist in any way they could.

Through Facebook, we found the son of Evie’s next-door neighbour here. It transpires that his mum looked after Evie towards the end of her life and even took on her cute dog called Bambi when my birth-mum transitioned. I believe the mother and son were also helpful regarding post-death activities / paperwork to Eve’s two nieces, one of whom inherited her home. (I’d had no contact with my birth-mother.) Another strange coincidence was that a woman from Canada posted in one of these Facebook groups that she used to come on holiday to a property very close by Evie’s house and it transpired that her uncle had sold the home to my birth mum and then bought it back again when the niece who inherited it sold it. Evie’s next-door neighbour’s son (still with me?!) even offered for my wife and I to stay with them and explore the area, but as we’re only 20 minutes away, it wasn’t necessary, but it was an incredibly kind thought and typical of the Portuguese we’ve met so far.

So we should be going to visit the area, see the house where she spent her retirement years, and learn more about her over the next few weeks. I know almost nothing about her in truth….. Stories about Evie picking up her (now deceased) sister from Faro airport on a scooter or moped are just the kind of thing that will be fun to hear. So far it seems she loved flowers, (her house was even called ‘house of flowers’ in Portuguese), cats and dogs and a glass of wine, (not sure in which order of priority!) all of which speak to me enormously! Genes will out…. I have to say I’m feeling a little nervous about meeting people who knew her. I suppose part of that is because they knew her whereas I didn’t, and I feel that I should, and one only wants to hear good things about people who are important in your life. Like us all, she was only human so I’m not expecting perfection. I know I’m certainly not perfect, but I’m hoping to hear pleasant things.

My adoptive parents Pammy & Freddy Grace set the bar really high as they were wonderfully kind and thoughtful people….. Once I hear more stories about her I’ll report back for blog instalment number three. Exciting times! Wish me luck….

Vinden with adoptive mum Pammy plus family Lab, Bruce.

December 26, 2020December 26, 2020

Adoption & A Tale Of Two Mothers

Having been told when I was 5 or 6 that I was adopted, I always wondered what led to that happening. A part of me used to wonder if I was unworthy so I do think being ‘given up for adoption’ (deliberate use of words there) affected my self-confidence.

My wife Eve and I trained as coaches and that, plus the NLP training all helped my self-confidence for sure. I recommend personal development courses for everyone!

My adoptive parents, Pam and Fred Grace, brought me great happiness. I knew that they would be upset if I searched for my birth parents while they were alive. My wish though was to meet my birth mother and tell her I had incredibly loving, kind, and inspirational adoptive parents. Mum and Dad lived a long time, both passing within a year of each other at 92.

After my personal development training, I started discreetly trying to find out more about the background to my adoption, with the intention of not trying to contact my birth mother until my adoptive parents had transitioned. Around 2007, the story started to emerge. It transpired that when my Irish birth mother was pregnant with me, she was living in London (where I was born) separated from her Irish husband, who denied being my father. I imagine it must have been really challenging being an Irish Catholic mother in the 50s giving birth to a child that wasn’t your husband’s, so I can understand her going the adoption route. What I wanted was to be able to meet her and explain that I understood her reasoning and didn’t hold it against her…. Plus I’d had a very happy childhood.

After my English adoptive parents died (2015 and 2016), I started to search via people tracing services and my social services counsellor for my birth mother without success. (Sidenote: I ended up counselling my counsellor about her teenage son, so the courses definitely paid off!)

I decided to apply for an Irish passport to make life in the EU easier post-Brexit as we wanted to spend summers in either Spain or Portugal (we winter in Florida). (Eve’s maternal grandmother was Irish, so she is applying for an Irish passport too.) One of the requirements for the Irish passport is my birth mother’s ID or her death certificate, so I asked a genealogist to see what he could find out so that we could obtain one or t’other. Bless him, after he found out online that my birth mother had passed away in 2013, a few years before my English parents (still with me?!) he contacted other members of her family by phone and so, within a day, I had new cousins! Quite a shock for them, which is another reason I held back from trying to contact her or her family.

We found out that my birth mother spent her final years in…… Portugal! Coincidentally, the country in Europe that we had chosen to register in and spend our summers! We rented in and registered for residence in Portugal in a town called Albufeira on the Algarve as they are very expat-friendly there and my Irish birth mother Evelyn, (known as Evie, one of my pet names for my wife Eve!) lived out her final years in Loulé, a mere half an hour from where we’re staying!

I’ve been corresponding with two of her nieces & sent them a link to our UK TV Channel 4 ‘A Place In The Sun’ episode, filmed in Florida, so they can ‘meet us virtually’ as I’m sure it’ll be quite some time before we can get to Cork & mingle freely. Looking forward to it!

Life Lessons so far:

* People often have very good reasons for their actions. Try to understand those reasons first before being judgmental or feeling you must have done something wrong or not been good enough

* Out of trauma (adoption say) can come good things, like wonderful adoptive parents

* Genes will out….. (Nature vs nurture) My birth mother ended up in Portugal and so have I!

To be continued….