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So my biological sister and I just returned from our paternal aunt's funeral. I just found my birth family last year and have since moved to Florida to be with my sister, who like me was also given up for adoption at birth. But adopted by another family. Our reunion and subsequent decision to spend our remaining 20-30 years together has riled many of my constructed family.

Anyhow, at my aunt's funeral, the person giving the speech never acknowledged my sister and my connection to our aunt; our last paternal ancestor. Then, the preacher, who admitted he never knew our aunt began reading, word for word the obituary my sister and I had submitted to the funeral home, EXCEPT he must have been told to omit the part about us being her nephew and niece and how I found her and our once loving relationship. (My aunt became bitter and estranged from us when I moved to Florida).

The irony is, the preacher told us he was adopted and he also has an adopted child.
I wonder if he and all these people at the funeral know what they did? They expunged two people FOR A SECOND TIME, out of existence. It is like being abandoned all over again. It makes me want to shout; "F*** ALL OF YOU!" But instead, we'll go back to our quiet existence, sit down and shut up.
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We knew it would be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If we didn't go, people would claim we didn't care. If we showed up, we'd be treated like we were. No one talked to us. There were no pictures of us with our aunt being displayed. The woman who often tried to push my aunt into a nursing home was the facilitator of the ceremony and she and her husband presented themselves as my aunt's saviors. The entire event was a fraud. Not just because we weren't acknowledged (it wasn't really about us) but because this culminating, important event in her life was expunged and replaced by self-serving platitudes.
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Having a sibling who was also given up for adoption and experienced the "de-personifying" effects of adoption has helped both of us tremendously. I truly believe adoptees of all "disenfranchised" people groups are the most disenfranchised because we had our identities as individual humans stolen away from us. Whereas minorities such as blacks or Hispanics or homosexuals or any group you can name, still have their individuality, we have no personhood except the one constructed for or by us...until we are reunited with our birth family.

And even that doesn't necessarily solve our issues. Because then we struggle to fit back in. Our birth family lived lives without us. Their fond photos don't include us. Their children's names aren't given to honor us. We may look like them, maybe we even share their mannerisms but it takes some time to belong.