| Hi and welcome to Adoption Adoptee Issues Member Community. You are about to meet Oakiejoe, our community founder. Oakie is great and fun to be around. He can make you laugh when you feel like crying. Thanks Oakie for all the laughter! |
| I have always known that I was adopted, because
the most beautiful person in the world told me so. Betty Lou Malone Jones, my Mother, has always been honest with me, to a fault. She began telling me that I was "chosen" from the moment God united us on Christmas Eve 1959. Since then I have never doubted her love, and it has saved my life. During my childhood I was subjected to all the jeers, leers, jibes, and crude remarks to which every adoptee is subjected. These assaults on our sanity, and insults to our egos are the stuff of our eccentricity. I do not believe I have ever met another adoptee who hasn't evidenced some "unique" personality "quirks". Our involvement with self-destructive behavior, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, family violence, crime, spousal & child abuse, and suicide, at an exaggerated rate, is well documented. The fact that many of us are, or have been owned by our inner demons is a sad commentary on that most noble of institutions, Adoption. I was raised in Hannibal Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River. The only difference between myself and Tom Sawyer is the spelling of our names. There could have been no more idyllic surroundings in which a young boy might have been reared. My family consists of my mother, who has blessed the life of all who know her. My father, Richard Eugene Jones Sr. was a hard working perfectionist who showed his love in his toil and service. My first younger brother Jeffery is an introverted genius who, being tall, blond haired, and blue eyed in contrast to his short, dark eyed & haired siblings, had to suffer the insulting question "are you the adopted one?" too many times to count. My youngest brother Roger is an "Imp Extraordinar'", who's mischievous grin is all that has ever saved him from a public hanging. My parents and my younger brothers have never failed to love & support me, even though I have given the all sufficient cause for the contrary. They have accepted me unconditionally, and if they ever treated me "differently" from one another, it was to lavish me with more understanding and forbearance than was my due. That is my family, and though not a drop of blood is shared between us, in my soul we are united for eternity. (to be continued) Rick You can email Oakiejoe here. Oakies Links |
