Helen Riley
My mother meets her birthmother today in N. Carolina, an experience she's dreamt of since she was a little girl. My father keeps calling me from their hotel room, telling me that she's a basket case: breaking out into rashes, getting lumps in her throat, having hot flashes. I'm so excited for her that I keep crying. She deserves this so much. She needs this. I can only imagine what it must be like. Finally...after fifty years of wondering and wishing and identity crisis, she's going to stand before her, maybe even hug her, and, undoubtedly, cry in front of her mother. All thanks to my father, too, who has been using his research faculties to decrypt documents meant to hide my mother's birth mother's true identity. My father has boldly made phone calls to hospitals and inquired into one town's after another's public records; he never gave up, even when it seemed like he forgot about it, like a pirate hunting for the treasure to end all treasures.
As far back as I can remember, my parents have been posting messages on bulletin boards, hoping for the off-chance that one of them would catch the right person's eye. In retrospect, the whole process is akin to notes written on Ellis Island and New York City walls by freshly docked immigrants looking to unite with their relatives.
With conviction, I can say that nary a day has passed that my mother hasn't hoped to find her mother. All of her passwords are related to either her mother or her adoption. She's written songs, poetry, and little stories about either finding and meeting her mother, or her experience of bereavement. She has always looked into the mirror and wondered which parts of her came from her mother; she's always looked at me and wondered the same thing.
And, at this very moment, 1:20pm Boulder time, she's in Raleigh, North Carolina, having lunch with a woman who has been omnipresent in her life. It fills me to just think about it. Nothing rivals this moment.
As far back as I can remember, my parents have been posting messages on bulletin boards, hoping for the off-chance that one of them would catch the right person's eye. In retrospect, the whole process is akin to notes written on Ellis Island and New York City walls by freshly docked immigrants looking to unite with their relatives.
With conviction, I can say that nary a day has passed that my mother hasn't hoped to find her mother. All of her passwords are related to either her mother or her adoption. She's written songs, poetry, and little stories about either finding and meeting her mother, or her experience of bereavement. She has always looked into the mirror and wondered which parts of her came from her mother; she's always looked at me and wondered the same thing.
And, at this very moment, 1:20pm Boulder time, she's in Raleigh, North Carolina, having lunch with a woman who has been omnipresent in her life. It fills me to just think about it. Nothing rivals this moment.