The Unknown Boy...Conclusion

 On Thanksgiving Day this year, I met my birth mother.

Not in person, though.

About a year after sending a text message to my cousin, I received a text message from my half sister. At first, I thought she was my older sister, the one who was five-years old when I was born. Nope. She was born two years after me. Since that first message, she came up and met my family, met her nephews and niece, and her half sister-in-law. 

So, when I found out about our birth mother, my half-sister and I started communicating. We texted, e-mailed, and spoke on the phone. Turns out, when my birth mom's family found out about me, they found out about her. We found out there would be two calls this Thanksgiving, one for me and one for my sister.

Thanksgiving Day came and waited for the call. As the afternoon ticked, I wondered how the call would go. My cousin said my mother was ill and on hospice. I thought of when my own mother passed away from cancer. She was also on hospice, but until the last couple of days of her life, she was alert, active, aware of her surroundings. This is what I expected.

The call came. I saw my older sister, and she introduced me to my mom.

My mother's condition was so much worse than I anticipated.

My cousin told me our mom was sick. I didn't realize just how sick she was. She was in bed, surrounded by family. My older sister introduced us on the video call. I introduced my mom to her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren...my mother's only grandchildren. We found out I have another half sister--my mom had four children in all and I'm the only boy. None of my half-siblings have any children, so my mother went her entire life without knowing she was a grandmother.

I wonder if she thought about one day becoming a grandmother. After becoming a grandparent for the first time this year, it's an incredible experience. We told her that not only was she a grandmother, but a great-grandmother as of July. My half-sisters found out they were aunts and great-aunts...something they didn't know, either.

I hoped I would be able to talk to my mother, exchange some stories, even make her laugh. Unfortunately, she was too ill. I told her that never in my life had I blamed her or thought poorly of her for putting me up for adoption. I told her I was grateful for her courage and selflessness. It's a conversation I'll never forget.

The conversation drifted to learning more about my sisters and their families. I found out my younger sister (both, actually...) loves to sing and perform. My mom loved to sing as well. I now know where I got that from. Mom was a firecracker, so full of life and lit up a whatever room she entered. More than once, both sides said we wished we knew of each other years ago.

I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I found out that part of the reason my birth mom didn't end up with my birth father is because my father's mother did not want him marrying a woman who already had a child. What might have been had that woman pushed their union? More unknowns to consider.

We wrapped up the call with promises of hopefully meeting in person soon, with expressing thanks for the incredible opportunity to meet each other. We said good-bye to my mom. Because of her condition, I knew I'd never get the opportunity to meet her in person.

Last week, I got a text message from my little sister. She informed me that our mother had passed. The family is planning a celebration of life in a few months where we hope to all gather and meet each other for the first time. It's a meeting I wondered would ever happen.

When I think back on the events of the past month, there's so many "what ifs." I suppose that's natural with any decision as life-changing and impactful as putting up a child for adoption. What if my mom had told her family about putting up a boy for adoption back years ago? If so, when I contacted my cousin, he would know instantly who I was instead of thinking I was some quack. If so (and if my family would want to meet me...), I'd have been able to visit with my family, have my mom meet her grandchildren in person, and they her. 

But, just like the alternative reality in quantum physics, the other me--the other life--never happened. I take comfort in knowing things unfolded the way they were supposed to. The family was supposed to find out about me during my mother's last days. We were never supposed to meet again in this life. I don't know why things happened the way they did, only that they did.

I'm so thankful that I got to see my mom, see her eyes open when she found out and meet her grandchildren. I got to tell her how thankful I am for her. I've lived a charmed life--I can't think of having it turn out any other way. I'm thankful for the woman I don't know but will hopefully get to know through her beautiful daughters. 

One might say, it was all for naught, yes we met, but things could have turned out so much differently. For me, I'm at peace, for I am the unknown boy no more.

The Unknown Boy...

 

Quantum physics states an object can be in two places at once. It states other things, too, but for this discussion, let's stick with that. Quantum physics opens the door to possible mutliverses, where a thing--even a person--can exist in two different realities.

I feel I've always lived in two realities, the one I know...where I was adopted into a family and raised by loving parents in a home with two adopted siblings.

The other reality...it never happened. It's the reality where I wasn't adopted but raised by a single parent in another part of the country with a sister five years my senior and not knowing how on earth things would work out.

The one was reality...the other, exists only in speculation.

Several years ago, after my mother passed away and decades after my father died, my family gave me an Ancestry.com test for Christmas. I took it and sent it in. The results came back. I found many new things about my genetic history, mostly that my family is centered around two geographic locations...Arizona and Texas. This makes sense since what little I do know about my birth parents is my mother was from Arizona and my father from Texas. That's pretty much it.

The Ancestry.com system allows you to see and contact those who are genetically related to you. I had one that was pretty close--a 1st or 2nd cousin who lived in Arizona. Back in February 2019, I gathered up the courage and sent him an e-mail. It was short saying I was born in November 1965 and asked if he knew anyone in his family who had a baby and put him up for adoption.

Crickets.

Nothing.

I waited, a week, month, even years...no response. I thought maybe the family didn't want to talk about the little boy left behind. I never sent a follow-up e-mail...didn't want to make things worse. Things stayed the same until last month. That's when my cousin responded. The e-mail he sent me said his aunt had given up a boy for adoption and wanted me to call him. He gave me his number. I called him that night.

We spoke, exchanged information. His aunt is my birth mother. She was a single mother at the time already with a five-year old daughter. The relationship between herself and my birth father didn't work out so she made the incredibly brave and selfless decision to allow another family to raise me at their own.

On the call, I asked my cousin why it took so long for him to respond. I wasn't prepared for his answer. He said he didn't respond because no one in his family knew I existed. You see, my birth mother never told anyone about me. My older step-sister was too young to remember when she and her mom traveled to Utah to have me, and my birth mom never told her family she was pregnant.

In all the scenarios, in all the possibilities of my other reality, I always thought others knew about me and maybe they wondered what ever became of the boy given up for adoption those many years ago. Nope...I was the unknown boy. I then asked my cousin about my birth father. He said that from what he understood from his aunt, she never told the birth father she was pregnant.

What?

You mean, the only person to know of my existence on my birth parents's side of the family was my mom?

That's what he said.

As an adopted person, you wonder what it will be like when you make a connection to the "other" family. How will they react? What questions will they have? Turns out, no one on that side of the family ever had those question. They never wondered what happened to the little boy.

They didn't know.

We spoke on the phone for several minutes. I wanted to know about how my mom was doing, questions I've had all my life. Some were answered...some were not. He told me my mother's health was not good--had not been good for years. He said she was in hospice care. My cousin told that they were going to visit his aunt/my mom for Thanksgiving and we could do a video call. 

I'd get to meet my birth mom.

On Thanksgiving last month, we made the call.

To be continued.