A Male Adoptee's Story of his Search for his Biological Family
and his love for her and his adoptive family!
Great Story!
My search was finally successful. I found my birth mother through an unlikely sequence of events that involved ALMA, the registry, and a mistake by a probate court clerk. I had not known, but my birth-mom was searching for me as well. All the time she was praying for my safety, my success, and my happiness.
When we did meet it was as if a hole that had been left in my heart had been suddenly and miraculously filled. In fact, the instant I heard her voice I knew it. No small wonder that, she used to read and sing to me before I was born and with her beautiful voice, it was no wonder that I knew it. The day we actually met face-to-face, my wife had just had knee surgery and was in a cooling cast - a special jacket that hooks up to an ice bath yet restrains movement of the leg. I received this call saying: "We're in town, when can we get together?" Being somewhat impetuous, I called back and invited my mom and her traveling companion, and friend for decades over for dinner. Aghast, my wife couldn't believe what I had done and tried in vain to get up. I won - and I got the privilege of cooking dinner for my mom.
Since then, we have had may conversations, our children know her as "Grammy", and often, one of us will finish the sentence that the other begins - except where it comes to politics. There, we are as different as Cape Hatteras and the Grand Canyon. But, even that difference has brought great joy to me. While there are many things that have kept us apart these many years there is something greater that binds us together. That is the love a mother has for her child, the love God has for us all, and the devotion a child spared from well, the opportunity that existed for death, has for the woman who loved him enough to endure more anguish and uncertainty than I can even begin to imagine.
I have a love for my birth mom that I cannot begin to describe. She not only gave me life - and she did have a choice - she gave me the chance for a life she believed she could not have offered alone. To say that I am grateful is insulting, to say that I love her is too mild - my heart is devoted and her counsel I often seek even as I seek that of my adoptive parents who in their 80s have wisdom beyond the understanding of today's children.
It was a gift from God that I had the opportunity to meet her - and it is an even greater gift from Him that to this day I can call her "Mom". There are tears in my eyes as I write this, tears of joy, humility, and honor. For I do honor her - and with all my breath I do love her, and I am humbled by the sacrifices that she has made that not only I might live, but that I might know her and my siblings of whom I am immensely proud.
My only regret of this wonderful adventure is that neither my adoptive parents nor my sister (also adopted) have ever met my Mom. The issue was raised once with each of them and the response was so overwhelmingly negative that out of respect for their feelings or concerns, it was never raised again. But to be able to hold in my heart and better my arms, the woman I call "Mom" is a joy that makes that regret truly insignificant.
Submitted by M. Anderson for male adoptee July 15, 2008
Contact: MAnderson@almasociety.org
