THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100873
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover story
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 170 lines
STILL GLOWING from a heartwarming reunion with her biological mother and stepbrothers, Cheri Dewberry agreed to help another adoptee confront the past.
Unfortunately, her friend's reunion was nothing like her own.
``It was very touching,'' recalled Dewberry, 27. ``But it was so sad. I realized how lucky I was.''
Before the reunion, Dewberry's friend had talked to her biological mother for only about 10 minutes on the phone. She knew little of the circumstances of her birth or of the lives of her biological parents.
Nervous but excited, she and Dewberry drove to a Richmond trailer park for the reunion last January. An unkempt woman in mismatched clothing greeted them at the door of her rundown trailer. Inside, the rooms were cluttered with clothing, blankets and dirty dishes.
As they talked, the woman spoke in scrambled sentences that ended with religious supplications. She continually fiddled with her hair and her dress. After a few minutes, she brought out four bags of presents for her newly discovered daughter.
``Here are the Christmas presents I missed giving you,'' she told Dewberry's visibly shaken friend.
The ``presents'' included used clothing, a Dustbuster, a bag of apples, an iron skillet and blankets.
``It was obvious there was something wrong with her,'' Dewberry recalled. ``You could tell her life was in disarray.''
The friend subsequently discovered that her biological mother had been battling a mental disease for years. She also found out that her birth father had been arrested while her mother was pregnant with her, and that he had been jailed off and on for different offenses ever since. A 30-year alcoholic, he recently had returned to jail on charges of assault and battery.
A few months after the reunion, Dewberry accompanied her friend again. This time, they went to a North Carolina prison to meet her biological father.
``She had to talk to him on a phone looking through a glass,'' Dewberry recalled. Still, ``You could see how happy he was to see her. He had such a sparkle in his eyes.''
As they left the prison, the two women talked.
``She was so full of emotion,'' Dewberry said of her friend, who asked not to be identified. ``It was a real eye-opener. She realized how much she appreciated her adoptive parents. She said, `I want to call my mom and tell her how much I love her.' She was really worried about what kind of relationship she was going to have with her birth parents.''
Dewberry understood. Although she had established a close-knit relationship with her own birth mother and two stepbrothers, she had watched many other families grapple with the emotional baggage of unraveling secret adoptions.
She had watched as other adoptees were rejected by their birth parents or left to wonder about the traumatic events surrounding their birth. She has seen happy reunions turn into disasters when drug problems, jealousy, guilt and other problems interfered with newly established relationships.
And her own situation had not been without problems.
For many adoptees like Dewberry and her friend, finding their birth parents provides a long-awaited ``closure to the issue'' of their adoption, explained Kathy Dial, coordinator of a Norfolk-based post-reunion support group for adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. But coping with the aftermath of reunions can be just as traumatic as going through a search.
``The adoptees are trying to work through their own sense of loss and anger and figure out where they belong,'' said Dial, who works for Catholic Charities of Hampton Roads. ``They're dealing with a whole new kind of relationship . . . so they have to set up new boundaries.
``But it's emotional for everyone involved. You're not just involving one or two people - you're involving the adoptee's family and the birth parents' family and perhaps their other children. In many instances, it's very difficult.''
At first, most adoptees are eager to establish intense relationships with their birth parents as a way of catching up on the past and getting to know them. That ``honeymoon period,'' when everyone is on their best behavior, soon passes, however. As conflict arises, even the best relationships often become strained.
Unlike her friend, Dewberry was thrilled when she first met her birth mother and two stepbrothers in Oregon last year.
After an initial two-hour phone conversation, Dewberry and her adoptive mother, Betty, flew to Oregon to meet the family.
``I realized a phone call was not going to do it,'' said Dewberry, who lives in Virginia Beach. ``Once we got there I didn't want to leave.''
The Dewberrys stayed for two weeks, often spending hours talking over family histories with Cheri's birth mother, Carol Chiles, and brothers Bill and Brian.
``There was a little awkwardness the first day, but by the second night it was like all five of us had been together forever,'' Dewberry said.
``That's when it sunk in that this was really my sister,'' echoed Bill Chiles, a 23-year-old firefighter who plans on relocating to Chesapeake to be near his sister.
Even during that first visit, however, uncomfortable moments began to arise. Betty Dewberry, who helped her daughter throughout her two-year search, recalls one instance where she felt as though she were invisible.
``I didn't feel threatened or anything like that,'' Betty Dewberry remembered. ``But Carol was introducing Cheri to a friend as `my daughter,' and she never acknowledged me. I felt like I'd been shoved out the door, but it passed. I had prepared myself for many things like that. Carol was stepping on my toes and just didn't know it.
``In the next few minutes, she said how much she'd appreciated the way I'd raised Cheri. So we were just establishing boundaries.''
Cheri Dewberry admits the two families have had their ``ups and downs'' during subsequent visits in Oregon and Virginia Beach. At times she has quarreled with her brothers, felt unappreciated by certain family members and not understood their ways. Still, the two families have begun to forge a permanent place in each other's lives.
``Both of her brothers have been threatened at times, trying to figure out where they now fit in,'' Carol Chiles explained. ``So many different feelings are involved for everyone.''
Dewberry's relationship with her birth mother is still evolving, especially as more and more secrets from the past are revealed. Carol Chiles gave Cheri up for adoption in 1967 while still a Navy wife living in Norfolk. Her husband was not Cheri's father.
``I'm so grateful that Cheri had such a good home,'' said the birth mother, who now serves as a foster mother for children in Oregon. ``So many adoptees don't get that. I know a lot of them end back up in foster care. It can be real sad.''
Dewberry said: ``I don't call her mom. She's more like a friend. I didn't need a mother; I already had one. But after being an only child all my life, I was excited about having brothers.''
Next, she wants to meet her birth father.
``I have very little information about my birth father,'' she said. ``He's never acknowledged me, but there will come a time when I'll be ready to confront him. I don't want to ruin anyone's life. I just want to see him.''
To help cope with all the emotional upheaval of the searches and reunions, Dewberry and her adoptive mother have become active members of Dial's support group.
``It takes an aggressive person just to go through the search process,'' explained Betty Dewberry, who adopted Cheri a few months after birth. ``You have to petition the court . . . ask a lot of questions and be persistent. You have to look for the open window, because you get a lot of doors slammed in your face. I wanted to be here throughout the whole process.
``Now, it's just as important that I'm there with her.''
Her daughter added: ``So many people make adoption a secret. The adoptees really have no rights. It should be aboveboard and all right to ask questions. When it's a big secret, adoptees feel there's something wrong with them.
``Once you find the answers, you're still on that emotional roller coaster. It helps knowing there are others out there going through the same thing you are.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Cheri Dewberry looks over some old family photos with her biological
half-brother, Bill Chiles, with whom she has established a close
relationship.
Cheri Dewberry, 27, walks with her biological half-brother,
23-year-old Bill Chiles, and her adoptive mother, Betty Dewberry.
Cheri was adopted by Betty a few months after birth. Bill lives in
Oregon but hopes to relocate to Hampton Roads to be closer to his
sister.
Cheri Dewberry holds a picture of her biological mother, Carol
Chiles. After searching for two years, Dewberry finally met her
birth mother last year when she and her adoptive mother flew to
Oregon.
Graphic
SUPPORT GROUP
The Post-Reunion Support Group for adoptees, adoptive parents and
birth parents meets from 7 to 8:30 p.m. the fourth Monday of each
month at a member's home. For information, contact Kathy Dial at
625-2568.
by CNB