Jul 27, 2016 14:10
Taylor,
Regardless if we meet, regardless if we speak, regardless if we continue to write, I want you to know:
I didn't decide on adoption because I didn't love or you because you were not wanted;
I didn't try to reach out or contact you after the last time I saw you because I didn't love you or because I did not want to;
I love you now and want to meet you and for you to meet my family, I want you in my life but respect any boundaries you may set.
At 16, I remember cradling you in my pregnant belly sitting in a booth on break at the Dairy Queen where my high-school drop-out self worked and feeling a love for you so powerful and so ferocious, I knew it would level any force set against it like a tsunami. It was this love for you which steadily whispered to me that I could not provide what I so desperately wanted for you and did not even have for myself at the time. I wanted you to have everything you could possibly want and need in addition to being loved and cherished in a supportive, nurturing home.
I did not meet then nor have I met since another mother who made the same choice I did. Nor have I met any adoptees (I've not yet met the niece I wrote you about, Olivia). Though I have searched, looking for support groups or meet-ups with other birth-moms, I haven't found much yet. Forums and websites exist online but I have difficulty relating. Maybe I'll start my own, there is a need out there.
My point is, I do not know how being adopted has helped to shape you and make you into the person you are today. But I know in my heart that the choice Brent and I made on your behalf has affected all of us for 21-years now, including your mom and dad, Donna and Marshall, along with your sister Maggie. I believe I may just now be beginning to understand all the ways, at least in my own life.
I would like to know, however, and would like to hear it from you no less. That day may be a few weeks away, next year, the next decade or maybe even never at all. That is why I wanted to say in my own words directly to you the three points above which seem the most important. Please know and feel them in your own heart as I feel them in mine.
All my love.