Lost and Found?
A couple of days ago my little brother, William, and I got the idea of tracking down our birth mother. Now I have to take the next step.
We had a maiden name, her last legal name, and a social security number; that's a hell of a lot more than most people start out with. Fourteen hours later we had a match.
Now I have to decide if I want to leave this as one of those things I do just to see if I can, or if I want to take the information and follow it.
What little memory I do have of Dianne, the woman who gave birth to me, is restricted to still images and short bursts of speech and movement. It's almost like seeing clips of some historical person without fully understanding who they were, but only knowing they were, for some reason, important. I have very few solid memories, and can only remember mourning not knowing her once in my life.
I grew up without much of a mother figure; Anne was there, but not really. Alcohol will do that to you. I never really had a desire for a mother figure in my life, and it may be contributing to why Linda and I simply don't get along at all.
My youngest brother, on the other hand, was way to young to remember anything about the woman that gave birth to him and seems to want to learn more about her. He attached to Anne early in life, and her inability to become a stable individual may have scared him deeply.
I've written an introduction letter, simply stating that we're looking for someone with whom contact has been lost for nearly 18 years, and left it open for her to respond. My initial plan was to sent it Registered mail so that we would know that the letter was, in fact, received.
I probably should complete the letter and mail it in, as my little brother is looking forward to it a great deal. I just can't help but to think that it may do more harm than good and to just forget that she ever existed. I've made it through the last eighteen years without her, as has William, and I'm thus sure that I can live the next sixty or so just as well.
We had a maiden name, her last legal name, and a social security number; that's a hell of a lot more than most people start out with. Fourteen hours later we had a match.
Now I have to decide if I want to leave this as one of those things I do just to see if I can, or if I want to take the information and follow it.
What little memory I do have of Dianne, the woman who gave birth to me, is restricted to still images and short bursts of speech and movement. It's almost like seeing clips of some historical person without fully understanding who they were, but only knowing they were, for some reason, important. I have very few solid memories, and can only remember mourning not knowing her once in my life.
I grew up without much of a mother figure; Anne was there, but not really. Alcohol will do that to you. I never really had a desire for a mother figure in my life, and it may be contributing to why Linda and I simply don't get along at all.
My youngest brother, on the other hand, was way to young to remember anything about the woman that gave birth to him and seems to want to learn more about her. He attached to Anne early in life, and her inability to become a stable individual may have scared him deeply.
I've written an introduction letter, simply stating that we're looking for someone with whom contact has been lost for nearly 18 years, and left it open for her to respond. My initial plan was to sent it Registered mail so that we would know that the letter was, in fact, received.
I probably should complete the letter and mail it in, as my little brother is looking forward to it a great deal. I just can't help but to think that it may do more harm than good and to just forget that she ever existed. I've made it through the last eighteen years without her, as has William, and I'm thus sure that I can live the next sixty or so just as well.