Serenity on the Summit

I've been holding out, I have passed a milestone in adoption and kept it to myself for some time. As most of you know, I have been through two adoptions as a birth mother. My first was very open, I knew Bella all her life. The second was much more mail contact only. I knew that it would be that way, and it was fine because I knew that the parents were very private people. It worked very well, usually twice a year there were pictures and writings of how we were both doing. I would look forward to those packages and they would come very randomly. I made sure to write every year on birthdays and Christmas. I did so faithfully and found great comfort that at least my voice was reaching them, reminding them that they were thought of, and often. So it was a wonderful surprise to get a phone call from my twin boys mother to have a cup of coffee.


It was set for a couple weekends ago. We met at a small place in the mountains, it was between us geographically, to keep it neutral and casual. I was kind of anxious, but I did not show it in the weeks leading up to the meeting. I had not seen her in almost 20 years. When we first came into phone contact back when the boys found me, it was very tense, very unexpected for both of us. We were thrown into a situation that A) we were not ready for and B) had to work together to ease into contact as carefully as we could. We eventually came to a common ground, but the months that followed were full of self realizations, figuring out the future and trying to see one another's side of this delicate life we lead. There has to be mutual respect and trust to some point. I believe I had more than shown her that I was loyal to my word because I knew where they were, yet I stayed away. I knew she respected me for that and then became willing to hear my reasons, my side as to why I thought it was important for the boys to have contact with me: because after all, if they initiated it then there must be some curiosity about me, about their family. It was a turning point for all of us, and this meeting between just the two of us in the mountains was going to be so important, a new beginning so to speak.

I arrived and she was there, looking almost the same as I remember her. She immediately got out of her car to greet me. We hugged, said hello. The smiles were present. We grabbed something to drink and sat in the warm sunshine to talk. Once it started, it did not stop. WELL, it is a popular stretch of road for bikers and there were a couple of times that we had to sit while they roared by. It was just so comfortable. The talk was about obvious things...the present, what they were doing, how they were doing, what the upcoming plans were. But it was the obscure things that were the interesting parts. I am not sure how to describe it, but unrelated things (still about the boys) but just random stuff. Why one wears glasses, why one is trying to beef up, why one likes this sport but not that one, what an amazing writer one is. It was interesting. Then, she asked about my kids, how Bruce was, what we were planning in the upcoming months. She was genuinely interested in hearing about them because there were some traits that she recognized in her boys. It just flowed, from one subject to the other, it was comfortable and familiar at the same time, which seemed odd given the years between visits. She brought a package of pictures for me that the boys picked out. They wrote on the paper what was going on in the pictures, and it was the first time that I had seen either of their handwriting. It took me back, seeing something that they wrote with their hands, it just took me back for a second. Little things like that will just get you, those firsts for us mothers.

We stayed longer than either of us anticipated, and began to speak about getting together again in the future. Preferably less than a 20 year span, ha ha. She was lovely, she was honest, she was so proud of her boys and it showed. The best part was that we were able to connect in a small way. We spoke freely, asked questions freely and just enjoyed seeing each other again. That day was a breathe of fresh air for me, it was something that I really needed. Spending time with her, hearing about the boys and how much they want to meet me, get to know me, it was all reassurance that what I had hoped for happened. Those boys were raised well. They were courageous enough to reach out and find me, contact me and be comfortable with finding out about me. It was a day that will stick with me for a long, long while. All those years of worry, wondering, and praying that they would understand...and in the end it seems that they do.