I spent the morning vacuuming and dusting between episodes of Game of Thrones. It makes me feel more manly to watch men fighting in armor while emulating their skilled swordsmanship with broad sweeps and stabs of my Swifter Duster. Yesterday afternoon, I viewed the movie Skyscraper with Dwayne Johnson “The Rock” bravely battling to save his family from certain death. Last night, before falling asleep I read about the hunt to find Adolf Eichmann, Nazi SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (senior assault unit leader), who escaped to South America with his fellow German mass-murderers. Without leaving the comfort of my home, I’m surrounded by such violence on TV and in books. It was time for a change of pace.

I turned to the movie, Three Identical Strangers, for a more heart-warming subject – adoption. My wife’s daughter insisted that we watch it, with only a small clue about its content. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else, but find the need to discuss it, so STOP here if you don’t want the plot spoiled SPOILED. From the title and her tease, I strongly suspected that it was about triplets and their search to find their birth parents. What I didn’t know is that they were separated at birth.

As an adoptee, I’ve often fantasized about having brothers and sisters, even a twin. However, I had no reason to question the document I received from the adoption agency years ago, outlining some generic details about the birth mother and her family. (See Post #104). It even gave a few vague details about the father, but this was only as reliable as the source. I’ve often questioned whether this was the truth or perhaps a clever deception to perhaps protect his identity? The profile document listed no indication of a twin, and I never questioned any of the “facts” that it provided. It gave me the knowledge that the 18-year old woman who gave birth to me had seven brothers and sisters, including male twins and it listed their differences in ages. A 1939 Indiana census report showed a Banister household in Shelbyville matching all these details, as well as parallel occupational information. It was very obvious that this was my birth mother and her family, but I’m now waiting for absolute proof from the state, as they have recently released sealed adoption records.

In the movie, one twin discovers the other and the publicity of their reunion uncovers the third. They became quickly reattached to each other, but discover they were part of an experiment – like lab rats. It was a shocking plot between a renowned psychiatrist and the adoption agency to separate the siblings and study their development apart from each other. They were not the only victims of this conspiracy and denied time together for the first nineteen years of their lives. It’s hard to believe the lack of compassion in these hellish “scientific” arrangements.

These boys did find their birth mother, but no mention of the father, except that he was her prom date. I’m convinced that my conception was a similar one-night stand, leaving a teenage girl pregnant and scared. I’m sure she had little choice in the adoption decision. I haven’t had a chance to meet my birth mother, as they did, because she apparently does not remember giving birth to me. Others have ask and her response is “don’t you think I’d remember something like that?” I guess she doesn’t, or the adoption agency gave me a fake family profile?