A Search for Identity

M Mehran

I used to think identity was something you were born with, like eye color or blood type. That you came into this world already knowing who you were. But I learned that identity is less like a birthmark and more like a puzzle you spend your life trying to solve.

I was adopted when I was three months old. My parents—Laura and James Whitmore—gave me everything. Piano lessons. A room painted my favorite shade of yellow. A backyard big enough to bury secret treasures in. They never hid the fact that I was adopted, but they didn’t talk about it much either. I didn’t ask questions. I was happy.

Until I wasn’t.

It started small. In eighth grade, our teacher gave us a family tree assignment. Everyone pulled out baby albums, interviewed grandparents, and brought in artifacts from their heritage. I drew blank boxes. A tree with no roots. I asked my mom what I should write for my “ancestry.” She offered a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and said, “Just write about us. We’re your family.”

She wasn’t wrong. But that night, I Googled “how to find your birth parents.”

By the time I was seventeen, I had tried everything. DNA tests. Adoption registries. Emails to agencies. Nothing.

Then, on the morning of my high school graduation, a letter arrived. No name, no return address. Just my first name in shaky handwriting.

I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t sleep. I just held the letter to my chest and cried.

After that, the questions got louder. Who was “A”? My birth mother? Father? Why now? What did they see from “afar”? I spent the next year spiraling through forums and private investigator blogs. I even made a Reddit post that got zero replies. Still, I refused to stop.

Then one afternoon, while volunteering at a community center, a woman walked in. Early forties, auburn curls, and eyes that mirrored mine. She signed in as Anna Wallace. My heart skipped. It couldn’t be. I followed her into the supply room under some made-up excuse.

“You don’t know me,” I blurted. “But I think I know who you are.”

She froze. Her hands clutched a box of notebooks. Slowly, she turned.

“Your name is Mia Whitmore,” she said, not as a question, but a memory.

We stood in silence, both trembling under the weight of a thousand unspoken truths.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a crumpled photograph. A newborn swaddled in pink, her tiny hand wrapped around a finger. My finger.

“I took this before they took you,” she said, voice cracking. “Not a day goes by I don’t see that face in my dreams.”

We sat on crates and talked for an hour. She told me about being nineteen, alone, scared. About making the choice that shattered her heart but saved mine. She told me she never stopped loving me. That she sent the letter.

I didn’t have all the answers after that day. But I had a beginning.


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Epilogue

Now I’m twenty-three. I still call Laura and James “Mom and Dad.” But I also visit Anna once a month. We take walks, share stories, learn each other’s favorite foods. Slowly, I’m putting together the puzzle.

I once believed identity came in one shape, one answer. Now I see it’s a mosaic—made of the people who raise you, the ones who love you from afar, and the choices you make to bridge the two.

I’m not fully there yet. But I’m closer than I’ve ever been.