Love Letters to Anne

There was a time it seems to me, before the arguments and fighting, I can recall being content, if not happy.

Friends and a semblance of security for a time but those times were not frequent, and even in the best of times I was empty, though distracted.

There had to be more to my life…I had a great destiny, was there any great hero that didn’t come forth from great tribulations and discord? They never tell you that the heroes suffer through anxiety or self-doubt. They only show you the victory after the last battle. If only I could make it there…then what? What happens to the hero afterwards?

But I digress.

These times gave me time to dream. Who I wanted to be, what I was going to do with this life. I was young. Really young, like seven or so. All I knew for sure was that when it came time, I would be ready for my dreams to come to me. Later, of course, I learned that I would have to go and get them.

So anyway, dad had passed, and I was relieved for him. He suffered at the end, and the end was long for him. He spent months on a ventilator and kept sedated to prevent him from pulling out the tubes going into him which were keeping him alive.

I don’t know what I felt really. I should have been sad or something, but this person was instrumental and complicit in some of the trauma that I picked up along the way. It was more of a closure for me. That chapter’s ending was welcomed.

And still I was lost, still I was looking for my family. I was fifty years old and my time was getting shorter.

Months later I would be reinvigorated in my lifelong dream of finding my family…I would redouble my efforts and put my Google-fu to the challenge once again.

I went over the paperwork again. I started contacting anyone and everyone that came up on this radar. My net was cast wide. Lawyers, case workers, judges, and even my adoption agency. All to no avail. It was a closed adoption, my birthright was being kept from me, and just about everyone I talked to seemed to have an attitude against me.

The DNA test I took was years ago at this point. Tremendous amounts of 5th and 6th cousins appeared. But no one who knew anything about me or my adoption.

I kept going over my trail of breadcrumbs. I’m coming momma.

And then it occurs to me, what if I’m too late? What if no one is left for me to find? I pushed through these dark thoughts. Thoughts of cemeteries and headstones, all that would be lost there at the gravesites. My journey's end in failure. No. I would keep going. And someone would be waiting. Someone was waiting, waiting for me. Waiting to find out about my life and adventures and ask me all the questions a parent would ask.

My DNA search was starting to show closer results, closer cousins and I contacted everyone I could. Giving my story, the how, the when and where. And then with one cousin, who is once removed, I got a last name for what could be potentially my biological father.

I scoured the internet for this name and found many possibles. This was the best lead I had. It was more concrete that anything I had previously. I began to think of how I would approach my family. After 50 years, I knew I could be a secret, I could be a reminder of something uncomfortable... anything was possible. And with that, that really ANY scenario was just as valid as any other, I chose hope. Hope that they were alive, hope that they were waiting for me.

Hope beyond hope.

There had to be something better, something more real. Blood. It was my blood drawing me to them, it was my blood leading me there. It's not that I'm ungrateful to the family that raised me, I'm not. I am full of gratitude for the adventures being with them afforded me. I would not be the person I am today without them. But it wasn't easy and so many things could have been easier if I had felt supported and loved. But loving a person like me is hard sometimes. The trauma and its fallout, along with new trauma to bury me, well, I’m difficult to be around sometimes. The lessons I learned were many, however, the lessons I learned about love were terrible.