Birthpsychology at the Movies

Review of the film Loggerheads (2005)
by Elaine Childs Gowell, ARNP, Ph.D 

This small essay is about a remarkable film and a series of synergistic events during a ski trip near the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Having had no advance opportunity to review any of the films, I requested admission to anything coming up on a particular afternoon we had free. The only ticket available was to something called "Loggerheads" which I presumed, was about turtles. Perhaps it was a conservation film?

The adventure began in line, when a woman told me the film was about adoption. She told me that her sister was having an open adoption. My interest was piqued, as my husband and I adopted four children in the 1950s and 1960s. My half-century of work as a psychotherapist has put me in the company of many members of the adoption triad.

The film's story is deeply moving. (The person with whom I stood in line happened also to sit next to me; she held my hand, as we both cried.) The deep wounding and trauma of adoption is depicted through the stories of three people.

One adoptee has AIDS, is unemployed, and is living on the beaches, watching and studying turtles. He has run away from his adoptive family because of their stand against his sexual orientation. His father is a preacher in a small town not far away.

We learn of a birthmother's search for her son, whom she relinquished for adoption 27 years, and we see her search for faces in the crowds. In the background of this drama is the faithfulness of the turtles, who return to the same beach year after year

The third story is that of the adoptive mother, whose pain is palpable. She does not know where her son is. She was never "the real mother." Her husband, the fundamentalist preacher, is shut down and incapable of relating to his wife. I never felt like the "real mother" to any of my children. It is just the way it is, no matter how hard you try.

After the film, while standing in a long line outside (at the porta-potties!) I discovered that the woman next to me in line was the birthmother in the film. Since then, she has sent me some of her son's poetry, written as he was dying. An example, with kind permission of Tom Lightwater's mother:

The scream which waited 27 years
        Which was burbled from time to time
         And threatened to come out
         Finally
         Came out.
All the Universe heard.
Oh, the scream of birth!
          The ragged breath
          and the scream
          And finally
          Calm
          As the loving arms
          Wrap around the tired soul
          Pulls the soul up
          And whispers, "You made it."
                          I made it.                TL

This experience was overwhelmingly rich for me, spiritually, as I have been experiencing much grief about the deaths of three of my adoptive children, and the alienation of a fourth. Try to find an opportunity to see Loggerheads.
                                                                                                                                                              ECG