I was raised in a wonderful loving home, and given all the care a child could ever need. Yet in my heart I felt a longing for a mother I didn't know. It was always with me. From the time I was a child I scanned faces in every crowd looking for her. Anyone with the slightest resemblance to me caught my eye. I didn't know if I would ever find her, but I knew someday I wanted to try.
I always knew that I was adopted, because my parents started telling me when I was so young, that I honestly don't ever remember not knowing. It wasn't until after asking a lot of questions in my teens, that my mom told me she had the names of my birth mother and the man she was married to (he was not my father).
It was a private adoption arranged through a physician who was a friend of my adoptive parents, so she had this information all along. Finding out my birth mom's name, and that she was only 15 years old when I was born, was enough for me at that time. I went on with my life, until a few more years passed, and again that longing returned to my heart.
I knew finding her would be difficult, because I only knew her married name, so the only thing I really had to go on was the name of the man she was married to.
I placed an ad in a little magazine I heard about on a local talk show to try and find him; it was for locating birth parents/children, and other missing people. After about a month I received a phone call from a woman who lived in Arizona who was searching for someone herself. She decided to look up his name in her phone book, just to try and help me. It was there so she gave me the info.
I wasn't even sure it was the right person, but I got up the nerve to contact him. Well, it was the man who had been married to my birth mom, and he was happy to fill me in on his part in the story. Unfortunately he hadn't seen her in many years, but he was able to give me the information that eventually helped me find her...her maiden name and her parents names.
I tried finding her and her parents right away, but without any success. I thought about contacting a private investigator too, but there was always that feeling of...what if she didn't want to know me? I wondered if I even had the right to barge into her life at all.
Around the same time I also registered with an organization in Nevada that will reunite adoptees and birth parents; if your info matches up in their system they'll contact you, but nothing ever came of it. I never gave up on finding her someday, and it was always in my heart, but again I put it on the back burner as my life became busy with marriage and having my children.
Fast forward to February 2002. Finding my birth-mom had been on my heart strongly over the last several years, so I started once again to search for her. On April 13, 2002 I found her mothers obituary on line, and all the information matched...I was beyond excited when I saw it...I went running through the house screaming Oh my god, oh my god, on the way to tell my husband who was still in bed as this was about 6:00 in the morning on a Saturday!
The obituary had my birth moms name, the city she lived in, and the names of her two brothers and their cities listed. I searched for her phone number right away but came up with nothing, so I moved on to her brothers. I was able to find one of them with a listed number in Oklahoma, but since it was so early in the morning, and in a different time zone, I had to wait for a decent hour to call, which just about killed me!
When I finally called, a very sweet woman answered, who was my birth mom's sister-in-law. To my surprise she knew about me, and was happy to hear from me. She said that they had always wondered how I was. She also told me that my birth mom was sick, and had been fighting lung cancer for the last two years. I was overjoyed and devastated all in the same moment.
She said she would contact my birth mom, who lived in California, and call me back. A few more gut wrenching hours went by.
When she finally called, it was with the news that my birth mom was very happy to hear from me, but was too nervous to talk to me on the phone just yet. She gave me her e mail address and asked if I would mind writing back and forth first instead. I was fine with that of course!
We talked through e mail for almost 2 weeks and exchanged pictures. Finally on April 22, (which just happens to be my birthday) she called. It was wonderful getting to know her, we had a lot in common, and I look very much like her, especially my eyes. :) She gave me the name of my birth father, and told me the long story of my adoption.
The last week of May of 2002, my birth mom, her brother, and sister-in-law all came here to Florida to meet me and my family. We had 6 precious days together, but we only spent one alone; we went to lunch at a seafood restaurant on the water, did a little shopping, and had the chance to really talk. I'll never forget that day as long as I live.
After she returned to California we continued to talk on the phone and through e mail. As the weeks past she became sicker and on August 15th 2002 she lost her battle with lung cancer.
I feel so blessed to have been able to find her when I did, and I truly feel it was heaven sent. My heart still aches because I miss her so much, but I know how lucky I am too, to have been able to share the time that we did.
Part two of the story is just as long, so I'll give you the condensed version. I waited two more years before looking for my birth father, Mainly out of fear of rejection, and not wanting to be hurt by any more possible loss in my life. I wasn't able to locate him, but in March of 2004 I found his daughter, my half sister, on Ebay! She's an artist, and when I did a search of their last name, and the city I was born in, I found a web site, that lead me to her Ebay page, so I contacted her!! We still laugh about it, because we know you really can find ANYTHING on Ebay!
Since then, I've gotten to know her and my dad very well, and we talk on the phone and through e mail almost weekly. I haven't met them in person yet, they live in Arizona, but we hope to go out there very soon! :) I also have 3 half brothers, and have been in touch with one so far. Anyway that's it...my whole loooong story.
No comments:
Post a Comment