From day one we were advised to say nice things when we were giving him cuddles - "Who's my adopted little sweetheart…" and such. So that he associated loving with the word adoption. So that it didn't come as a shock to him later on.
When the adoption law changed in the 70's and Simon was about 15, I said to him: "If you want to find out I don't mind, and if you'd like I'll help you." But he said: "No, you're my mum," and we just left it at that. But when his children started to come along he seemed to have a more urgent need to find out about himself. Eventually his wife contacted the Salvation Army. Their advice was to put an ad in the local newspaper in the area where he'd come from. And one Sunday evening he got a phone call from a friend of his mother's who was able to give him a telephone number.
The evening he was going to ring her he called me and said, "Mum, I don't know what to say, what do I say when I ring her up?" I said, "You just say hello, it's Simon …" and I'm sure it'll just open up from there, and it did. The weekend after the phone call he went to meet his mum and he discovered that he had two sisters. Simon was excited and it was wonderful to him because he had found himself - his roots. And for a couple of years things changed - it was like a honeymoon period.
I didn't think about how I felt at the time, but it was strange. At Christmas, when I went to his house I saw this card which said, "To my son and daughter-in-law", and thought, I didn't send that. Inside it said, "love, mum", and I thought, I'm his mum. But then - no I'm not, she's his mum. You get these mixed feelings. I raised him, but she bore him and I think we now just share him quite happily.
I gave him time to find out all he needed about the family he now belongs to. It was hard to pull back and not be the mother figure, but still be there if he needed you. But it was something I had to do for him and he's come back.
One of the hardest things was realising that my grandsons weren't my grandsons. It was "new grandma", this, and "new grandma that" and I felt that they didn't think of me as their grandma anymore - but they do. In fact one of their early comments was, "Great, we'll get more presents now!" They just thought, "good - another source of income here".
