My birth mother

Last night I was blogging about not forgetting where you're from and how sometimes I lose faith in the human race. This got me to thinking about an email my birth mother wrote to me awhile ago. I'll just give you the gist of it because it kinda disgusted me and was a little too long. She told me that she had some incurable liver disease (no doubt brought on by drugs and alchohol), if there even were a disease. Skipping ahead past all the formalities, knowing I had just had a child (mind you she's had not contact with me for the last year or so), she asks if we banked the cord blood. She asks this referencing an experimental therapy that utilizes t cells of a matching donor. I don't think I had a problem with her asking about the cord blood. Honestly, I would have given it to a stranger if it could help them live, so why not her. I'm on every organ and bone marrow donor list there is. I figure if I'm willing to donate anything I have to a stranger surely I can find it in my heart to give the woman who gave birth to me an opportunity to live.

What did disgust me though is what she went on to say were her alternatives if she couldn't find a match. Her best shot , she thought, was to have another child just so she could have the cord blood from the child and thus his t-cells. I can't describe how much this infuriated me. In essence, you're saying that you're willing to sacrifice the life, at least the quality of life of this child for a last ditch effort to save your own life.

I'll never again underestimate man's will to live. It's pretty sad that the will to live can overshadow any semblence of a rational thought. What confuses me even more is that my birth mother is writing me almost asking for my approval. She's demonstrated that she's unable to take care of a child in a few ways. The first and most obviously apparent way to me is her first two sons were taken away from her by the state because of inadequate care. The second is if you really are that ill and this treatment doesn't work what do you do with this child. Did I forget to mention that she lives in a women's shelter right now? I don't think that's what anyone would consider a stable home. How dare you ask me to accept such an assinine thought.

I couldn't let this child that she'd be creating, basically for a science experiment, go into foster care like I had done so many years ago, but how could I be responsible for this child. I just had one of my own and I'm hardly a perfect father. I do my best but I know my shortcomings. I honestly wonder how anyone could ever be this selfish.

I look at my own son today and sometimes I have a hard time going to work because I don't want him to miss me like I missed my family. The world just seems right when I see him smile. He doesn't know we're poor, he doesn't have a care in the world. How could I or anyone else for that matter think it's okay to leave a child you've created.

I'm not writing this for sympathy. I got over everything a long time ago. At some point in time everyone needs to realize that everything you do is a choice. Your childhood may have sucked, but guess what, everything you do from this moment forward is a choice. Don't be a victim. No matter how hard your life has been, someone else has had it harder. I was found in a dumpster and had a little pot belly like a malnurished african kid, but ya know what, at least I was born into the greatest nation in the world and have an opportunity to make my life better.

The selfishness I see every day of my life makes me sick. I know my birth mother is an extreme example of this selfishness but it still makes me wonder how much hope is there for the world if a mother would consider having a child just to have a chance to save her own.

I havn't written too much about my personal life on here yet, this is just a sample and maybe it gives you an idea of why I call it my cartoon life. The things I've seen an dealt with just seem like they belong on a cartoon.