Longest Two Weeks Of My Life

After two weeks of waiting, I got a letter in my mailbox with her return address. I put it in my bag and went to meet my friend Christina for lunch. She probably couldn’t figure out why I was acting so weird. I hadn’t really told any of my friends about my work as a PI. Finally, I told her what had happened. In typical Christina fashion, she demanded to know what it said. I told her I didn’t know because I hadn’t been able to open it. She insisted that I do it right away. Before I opened it, she made me promise that whatever was in that letter didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to change who I was as a person, and if it was negative, then it was NeverTooLate’s loss, not mine.

NeverTooLate did want to talk to me. She told me about the circumstances around my adoption. That’s where this story becomes a Lifetime Movie. I’ll explain in the next blog post. She was shocked to hear from me, but knew that someday it was going to happen. She was married to SinginInTheRain, but wasn’t ready to tell him that I had gotten in touch with her, but hopefully would soon. She told me about my sisters, and about my medical background. Her daughters didn’t know about me, and they were too young to learn about me. She closed by telling me that if I ever needed anything, she would do her best to help me. She left her email. I emailed her back and we started a back and forth that would last for eight months.

I’ve probably read that email about ten times.  I still take it out every now and then to look it over again.  It changed my life.  The person I was before had no idea where she came from and had never had any contact with NeverTooLate.  NeverTooLate gave birth to me.  She was my mother.  Yet at the same time, she’ll never truly be my mother.  She missed my childhood, she wasn’t there when I skinned my knee, she isn’t the one I call when I’m having a bad day.  Yet she still gave birth to me, and she’s my link to the past.  Without her, I wouldn’t be alive, and without her making the decisions that she made, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today.  Not that it’s better, just different.