Friday, January 21, 2011

That Lady Wasn't My Mother!!

So here's a nice rhetorical trick that cries out for clarification! A baby, abducted shortly after birth, now senses as an adult that her mother isn't really her mother. She Googles events around the time of her birth and finds notice of a baby abduction. DNA proves the match and she's re-united with Mom and now the law enforcement hunt is on for the fake Mom who abducted her.

What's the story here? Is it that biology trumps love, nature trumps nurture? Or is it that there never could have been "true" love involved, since what kind of mother would steal another woman's baby? Or is it that telling lies is what makes it a fictional attachment in the first place?

What about all those babies who never were loved or wanted by their DNA-matched "real" moms? What do they get, if not a real mom, to prove their misgivings? Only Jesus? No one calls Him Mama Jesus.

Just because you can find a story in reality whose odds might approach those of the Lottery, doesn't make the real story any less Hollywood. I mean this particular outcome isn't going to happen to you. Which doesn't mean a thing about how wonderful it might be for the reunited family in reality.

Still, as with Lottery winners who seem to get depressed and even kill themselves at a rate higher than the rest of us, and just as with Hollywood Hotties who seem to have a harder time than the rest of us staying in relationships, the real story is about keeping our dreams alive. This story is a realization of the fantasy that there really is someone out there who might love us the way that we deserve to be loved.

Except, oddly enough, most of us now feel lucky not to have been in the winner's shoes. Most of us are happy to have been raised by a real Mom who really did love us. Right? But, you know, I'm pretty sure that there are lots of people who do just fine without one.

The real prize is to be happy with what you are where you are, and there are as many different routes to that destination as there are individual stories. It's never easy. And the story never ends.

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