After 59 years, Forestville woman reconnects with the son she gave up for adoption

She held him in her arms for only a few moments.

The nurses left the room, and Lucy Wilkins was alone with her infant son for the first and last time. The thought raced through her mind: “I could just run down the hall and run out and not get caught.”

But even if she did make it out of the hospital doors, where would she go? In 1964, there was no place for a 19-year-old unwed mother. Not for a good Catholic girl in polite society.

It just wasn’t done.

She named the infant Anthony for “the patron saint of lost things,” she said. Lucy was fearful for him as she handed him back to nurses, not knowing where he would go or who would raise him. Would he be safe and loved?

Asked if she would like to send something with the baby, Lucy pulled out a small pendant of the Madonna and child her mother had given her. She wanted Anthony’s new mother to have it.

“She’s the one who is going to do all the work,” Lucy thought. “She’s going to be there for him when I can’t be.”

Lucy’s mother picked her up and drove her home to San Diego to return to college to pretend it didn’t happen — not a word said about her lonely months in hiding with another family in another city, the experience of childbirth, her raw, empty feelings or the child who would not be spoken of.

It was as if he never existed.

Lucy tucked her secret baby away in “a closet” in the back of her mind along with the grief she never had a chance to process. On his birthday every July 1 or sometimes on Mother’s Day, however, she thought of him, helplessly and with a pinch of pain.

But “the door was unlocked,” she said, should he ever return.

A life-changing message through social media

At 78, Lucy Hardcastle is a ball of energy and exuberance. She loves hiking, dancing and doing for others. A social worker by trade, she worked 33 years for various hospice organizations. She volunteers at the Food for Thought food bank and other causes.

In Forestville where she has lived for 34 years, Lucy is regarded by some as the unofficial mayor, credited with leading a decadelong political and fundraising effort to secure 4 acres for a community park in the heart of town that had been slated for development.

The new Downtown Forestville Oaks Park is just steps from the snug basement apartment she has downsized to with her husband, Bob Hardcastle, a retired local schoolteacher.

However rich and rewarding her life, though, Lucy was a woman with a piece missing.

“I had convinced myself for decades I would never hear from him,” she said.

“Why would he want to talk to me, the woman who turned him over to a stranger days after birth? I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve to hope he would understand, to reach out, to forgive. In fact, I didn’t deserve to have another child, a happy home, a family.”

Lucy came close to marrying her college sweetheart, but recoiled and ran.

“I remember his mom was going to buy us a house, and we went into this brand-new house in a new suburb in Whittier. I stood in the kitchen and said I would die if I went through with this. I just said this isn’t me. It’s not the life for me.”

Lucy said her story is not unique. Some 30% of women who choose adoption for a child never have another. Avoidance became a way of coping with an irreplaceable loss and lingering grief.

“I designed my life around not caring,” she explained. “That way I didn’t need to face the pain. I was a career woman and took pride in my accomplishments.

“Just don’t pass me a baby. I’m uncomfortable holding babies. I’m not sure why, but I don’t give it much thought. Until confronted, many women like me don’t even know where our pain comes from. It’s buried so deep.”

At one point, Lucy signed up with an adoption reunification registry but let it lapse. She never searched aggressively for her son, feeling that was up to him to decide if he wanted to meet. When her husband signed them both up with the genealogical research sites Ancestry.com and 23andMe and shared DNA samples, Lucy kept her genetic profile open just in case there was a match.

They hadn’t checked the site in a long time, having misplaced their password.

But in Thornton, Colorado, outside Denver, John Alge, a 58-year-old retired U.S. mail handler with a similar piece missing, was mustering the courage to reach out, having finally discovered through his own Ancestry profile that his biological mother was a Lucy Hardcastle in California.

Alge shot off a message to Lucy’s husband, Bob, through Facebook.

And so, on an ordinary day in February, Lucy Hardcastle returned home from shopping to life-transforming news that she had hoped for but never dared believe she would ever receive.

“You were just talking about him the other day,” Bob Hardcastle told his unsuspecting wife when she walked in the door. “He showed up today, Lucy.”

She immediately messaged Alge back.

In the space of two hours and three messages, a nearly 59-year-old secret was unsealed. When Alge sent a photo of himself holding up the Madonna and child medallion, Lucy knew without a doubt he was her son.

She did not hold back her emotions in her first message.

Parallel lives

Alge also had his own fears of rejection. It was something he said he felt even as a child growing up in Ohio, the only child of Bill and Delores Alge.

Delores, who was unable to have children of her own, sat him down when he was 7 and told him he was adopted.

“It was a struggle for me. It was a struggle before then and it carried on,” Alge said by Zoom from his home outside Denver.

For various reasons he is uncomfortable sharing, Alge had a hard time fitting in as a child. But he did relate that he has attention-deficit disorder and his dark curly hair gave him a look that was out of place in his conservative community, which led to bullying.

Lucy prefers not to talk about John’s birth father, who was from a Portuguese-American fishing family. They had dated in high school but were no longer seeing each other when John was conceived. She never told him about the child.

Alge said his parents were supportive and got him help for a multitude of physical and psychological problems. He slowly overcame his early trauma by high school.

But one wound many adoptees and birth parents call “the primal wound” remained.

The theory was put forth 30 years ago by Bay Area therapist Nancy Verrier in her book, “The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child.”

Verrier maintains that a deep physical and psychological bond exists between a mother and child even in the womb and that separation at birth results in trauma that can have lifelong impacts.

It set off “a bomb” in the adoption community, said Rebecca Autumn Sansom, an adoptee who recently collaborated with her birth mother, Jill Hawkins, on a documentary “Reckoning With the Primal Wound.”

“I was in what they term ‘in the fog’ for most of my growing up, as most adoptees are,“ said Sansom, who made the film while living in Palo Alto but now lives in Florida.

”They don’t really think about it or it would be devastating to go there and also get through life. That’s why reading the book for the first time, we realized we weren’t alone in feelings we had had for our entire lives. Feeling sad, like we had lost something. It’s really a validating book to read for adoptees.“

It’s a book Lucy also has turned to for more understanding and healing. There are so many layers to the pain, beginning with the shame. She said she was in denial about her pregnancy and tried to conceal her growing belly by making candy and trying to hide it under fat.

“Eventually my mother said, ‘We have to have a talk,’” she recalled.

But when her mother said she had made an appointment with a doctor, Lucy barricaded herself in a closet and “stayed there for hours, crying.”

He parents were pillars of the community. Her father, Walter Wilkins, a psychologist, was director of the Naval Research Center in San Diego, a neuropsychiatric unit. Her mother, Loretta, was deeply involved in charity work.

None of her four siblings knew about the pregnancy until she started opening up to a few people many years later. Her two older sisters were out of the house by then. Lucy chose to live with a family set up through a Catholic placement agency, using the money she made doing child care to pay for her hospital bills.

Social norms have eased in the past 60 years, making it possible for single women to choose to raise a child alone, however difficult. It was not an option for Lucy.

Fear of a second rejection

Many adoptees remain emotionally guarded and carry throughout their lives feelings of rejection they can’t shake.

“I had to do a lot of work around rejection,” said Kristine Drawsky, a licensed clinical social worker in Santa Rosa and an adoptee who specializes in issues related to adoption.

Her own birth mother has not responded to her attempts to make contact. She said it is important at least for adoptees and birth mothers to find one confidant to share their feelings with.

“When a woman has another human being in her womb and you separate them, the trauma is unmeasurable,” she said. “So if you are able to share with at least one person, you can manage better. If you sit with your trauma long, that is when your trauma is deep.“

Alge said while he had made some halting attempts at finding his birth mother, he held back because of fear of rejection.

“It was a very real thing for me. It was really prevalent in my childhood. I was rejected all along. That fear stopped me from actually going through with my DNA sample,” he said.

Last fall, a friend urged him to just submit it and see what would happen. His report came back in December and showed a clear maternal match with Lucy, who he now calls Mom.

It was then that his adoptive mother opened up more, went to a drawer in her room and returned with the medallion he had never seen.

“I have quite a few of my childhood pictures. I got those out. I cried until the third day,” Alge said. “And then I realized Mom Lucy had always been there, like a guardian angel. Mom wanted to give up something, and that pendant was the final piece of the puzzle. It was an amazing thing that she did.”

‘Trust you will be OK’

There are no more secrets for Lucy.

“I shouted it from the rooftops (on Facebook), and the response I’ve gotten is powerful,” she said. “I’ve heard many stories, read many books, obsessed with learning as much as I can. Even the painful parts I embrace in order to heal and let go. I feel free letting others know and have gotten so much love and compassion in return.

“Advice? Trust you will be OK and find support. It’s worth it.“

Lucy and Alge have easily hit it off and are making up for 59 years of lost time. They connect through Facebook Messenger and text daily, and Alge attended a family birthday party for an aunt online.

In addition to curly hair (although Alge has lost his), they have discovered both like to help others through charity work. Coincidentally, they both volunteer for a nonprofit group called Food for Thought.

They trade photos and selfies. Alge proudly shared his copy of a recent proclamation he received from the state of Colorado, Lucy said, “that talked of his selfless service to a variety of causes, from vets to immigrants to food insecurity.”

She added, “If I see something interesting, I send it to him — a cartoon, a mural, a quote. It’s like I have a new BFF. Our messages are peppered with heart emojis. I’ve let him know when I’m sad about our losses, and he lets me know when he has those thoughts as well.”

They are planning to finally see each other in person for the first time since 1964 when Lucy travels to Denver later this month. Alge, who is married and has two adult stepchildren and a step-grandchild, is planning a bunch of activities, including a parade to show off his “Mom Lucy” to his many friends and associates through his nonprofit community and Democratic Party work.

He plans to visit California this summer for a family reunion to meet his aunts, uncles and cousins.

The extended Wilkins clan, which includes 13 first cousins, is excited to welcome Alge to the fold, said Lucy’s sister Cathi Sassin, a former Sonoma County resident who now lives in Laguna Beach.

The old stigmas related to adoption of the 1960s are gone. Their parents died more than 25 years ago, but Sassin said she believes they would have opened up and evolved with time.

Sassin said she is sad she was not able to support Lucy, a scared teenage sister who went through childbirth alone. She knows that healing is a process and it will involve the whole family, but they can show up for Lucy now.

“Piece by piece, she’s going to have to grieve and grieve and people can rally around and talk it over with her,” Sassin said.

Lucy said she is nervous, but also in wonderment at the suppressed maternal feelings flooding out, even though her son is a retiree approaching 60.

“I’ve let him know there is part of me that wants to hold him and never let go and a part of me that wants to protect him from any need I have that may push him away. I want to give him the space he needs,” she said.

”I’m his mother, and I feel very protective of him. It’s the first time I’ve experienced those feelings and finally know the power behind a ‘mama bear’ syndrome. I’m prepared to be strong, as I am strong. I’m prepared to be vulnerable, as I am vulnerable. I can only bring myself, imperfections and all, and hope for the best. All that and, of course, trying to figure out what to wear!“

She said all the old fears bottled up in the back closet of her heart have been assuaged and that she’s finally free to be a mother — John’s mother. That means putting hearts on all his Facebook posts like any mother does.

“I feel sad when I think of the years we didn’t have together,” she said. “And I feel joy knowing we finally get to meet, that we have the future, however it unfolds.

“We can never make up for what we lost, but we can make the best of the time we have left.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.