The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: Part Five–Afterward

by Shannon Gibney
An Educator of the Year of Minnesota State Colleges, the author tells her story of growing up in Michigan as an adoptee by intertwining it with the fictional story of Erin Powers, whom she could've been if she had been raised by her birth mother.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Prologue–Part One, Part Two, Parts Three–Four, Part Five–Afterward
40 words 7 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. oppressive
    marked by unjust severity or arbitrary behavior
    Lorde made me feel less alone and that the things the world was telling me were “wrong with me” perhaps had more to do with its oppressive structures than with me as an individual: “Each of us is here now because in one way or another we share a commitment to language, and to the reclaiming of that language which has been made to work against us.”
  2. aggressive
    tending to spread quickly
    Perhaps you do not know that approximately 8 months ago, my sister, Mary Sheila (I believe many of you have met her), was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), an extremely aggressive, rare form of breast cancer.
  3. benign
    not dangerous to health; not recurrent or progressive
    Most such findings are benign (not cancer).
  4. oncology
    the study and treatment of tumors
    I am the Nurse Coordinator in breast care at Fairview Southdale Breast Center with many years of oncology and surgical experience. I am able to answer questions about the diagnosis, treatment options, assist with appointment scheduling, and offer support resources as you move through planning and treatment.
  5. subsequent
    following in time or order
    The truth is, I often think of my tumor. When the doctor cut it out, what did it look like? Did he or the nurses even look at it? Or was it just another cancerous mass that needed little observation, besides its subsequent evaluation by laboratory scientists under the microscope?
  6. banal
    repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse
    Surgical teams remove so many tumors, they must become banal after a time.
  7. scalloped
    decorated with a margin or border of semicircles
    For some reason, whenever I imagine my tumor, it is white. Round with scalloped edges.
  8. excise
    remove by cutting
    Late at night and at random times during the day, I will feel a sharp pain on the right side of my chest (the nurse told me they are so common among breast cancer survivors; they call them zingers), as my body recalls that something was cut from me. Something was excised.
  9. dissipate
    go away, scatter, or disappear
    Even now, seven months after surgery, my underarm, where they took samples of the lymph nodes to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread, is still numb from halfway down. The doctor told me this will last for some time, but will slowly dissipate.
  10. elicit
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    There is a small node at the tumor site—hard and round. It is an evolving group of blood cells attempting to heal themselves after being severed during surgery. I believe my oncologist called it a hematoma. It is the strangest sensation to feel an itch inside your skin—but that is exactly the sensation the hematoma elicits.
  11. malign
    speak unfavorably about
    Even a cancerous family tree is a family tree for an adoptee. And therefore, to be cherished...if also maligned.
  12. genealogical
    of or relating to the study of ancestry
    This genetic map I received after my treatment is probably the fullest, and certainly the most professional, genealogical rendering of either side of my immediate biological family I will ever receive.
  13. render
    show in, or as in, a picture
    This genetic map I received after my treatment is probably the fullest, and certainly the most professional, genealogical rendering of either side of my immediate biological family I will ever receive.
  14. pique
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    Almost 40 percent of adults will get cancer at some point in their lives, so maybe this is not so surprising after all? Everyone has someone in their family who has survived or perished from it. But certainly, where there are clusters of it within families and through generations, questions will be asked, concerns piqued that it cannot simply be a coincidence.
  15. elusive
    difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
    There are many small genes they haven’t mapped yet. And others that can get triggered by environmental factors. And of course, the complex interplay between multiple genes, and genes and the environment, is now widely accepted as the cause of cancers. Something so elusive that it can be virtually impossible to pinpoint, much less map.
  16. preposition
    a word before a noun or pronoun connecting to another word
    “That’s quite a story,” I say, moving my pen across the paper as fast as I can. This is the first real break I have had on any significant information on my father’s side of the family, and I do not want to miss even a preposition.
  17. disingenuous
    not straightforward or candid
    Then I think I might sound disingenuous, or unclear or something.
  18. wary
    openly distrustful and unwilling to confide
    “No, he’s not dead.”
    But something about the way he says it makes me wary.
  19. legacy
    anything handed down by someone or something in the past
    “I’m biased, of course, but I think he lives up to the legacy of the name. Hopefully, you’ll have the chance to meet him soon, when we head back home for the holidays. He will be very excited to hear all this history about his name.”
  20. ostensibly
    from appearances alone
    I am staying in a giant old mansion in Red Wing for two weeks, on retreat with five other women artists, ostensibly to get work done on my book.
  21. conceive
    have the idea for
    And that’s when I realize that if I’ve been botched by my story—by the possibilities that were lived, imagined, and never even conceived of—he surely has been, too.
  22. brood
    the young of an animal cared for at one time
    Am I just one in a brood of his children?
  23. musing
    a calm, lengthy, intent consideration
    My grandfather interrupts my musings.
  24. premise
    a statement that is held to be true
    It’s not that we don’t want to actually interact, but that we both have family, school, and work obligations. And also, that the whole premise of the storyline, what we are to each other, what we could have been, is so awkward.
  25. stimulus
    any information or event that acts to arouse action
    My thoughts are bouncing around my cranium, sparked by so much new stimulus.
  26. inevitably
    in such a manner as could not be otherwise
    They ask me about my work, I ask them about theirs, and then the conversation inevitably turns toward the book I’m writing.
  27. futile
    unproductive of success
    “But I’m sorry, Erin, he wasn’t all there all the time.” He sighs. “Which is just one of about a million reasons why this little field trip is so futile. Sorry to tell you. Again.”
  28. diffuse
    transmitted from a broad light source or reflected
    I squint into the sky, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on my face. Even the light here feels different than it does in Utica. More diffuse, somehow.
  29. conjure
    summon into action or bring into existence
    He reaches out and touches the writing on the paper, almost as if this small, intimate gesture could conjure my father, in the flesh.
  30. cataclysm
    an event resulting in great loss and misfortune
    Later the same day, while looking at pictures of his own long-dead father and of Peter Parker (the young superhero who was a quasi-adopted son to Stark before Parker was lost in the cataclysm that wiped out half the galaxy), Stark seems to reconsider his choice.
  31. abscond
    run away, often taking something or somebody along
    The child of frost giants raised by Norse gods absconds with the prized Tesseract cube after the time-traveling Avengers attempt to steal it.
  32. obtuse
    lacking in insight or discernment
    The Tesseract takes Loki to the Mongolian Gobi Desert, where the obtuse bureaucratic organization Time Variance Authority (TVA) finds him.
  33. stave off
    prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
    The TVA imprisons Loki at their facility, and eliminates the new timeline he has created—all in order to stave off the collapse of the multiverse.
  34. discrete
    constituting a separate entity or part
    She’s you, sweetie. My breath catches in my throat. He looks at me sadly, and nods. And also not you. I mean...it all depends on if you believe in a discrete definition of “you” anyway. Or discrete timelines and universes.
  35. precipice
    a very steep cliff
    We are standing on the precipice, and I can see Boisey Christopher standing on the other side, in the warehouse, a tiny insignificant dot in the fabric of space-time.
  36. clerical
    of or relating to clerks
    This uncertainty over when a birth date may initially seem like a clerical error; however, I argue it reflects the ways in which biographical details are seen as fungible and mutable as part of the orphan manufacturing process.
  37. fungible
    freely exchangeable for something of like nature
    This uncertainty over when a birth date may initially seem like a clerical error; however, I argue it reflects the ways in which biographical details are seen as fungible and mutable as part of the orphan manufacturing process.
  38. abiding
    unceasing
    For our entire childhoods and most of our adolescence, we thought we were the only ones. With stories too filled with holes to make any sense at all. With an abiding disbelief in the American religion of the family, of permanency, of universal middle-class happy-endings.
  39. sardonic
    disdainfully or ironically humorous
    We make our way through and within our stories by creating a language of recognition. It is sharp, and fragmented, anguished, and sardonic.
  40. casual
    without or seeming to be without plan or method; offhand
    But it is something for an adoptee to be recognized. To have meaning reproduced in a casual turn of phrase...rather than repeatedly misused or misunderstood.
Created on Wed May 22 08:46:10 EDT 2024 (updated Wed May 22 16:46:15 EDT 2024)

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