An Open Letter To The Mother I Never Knew

Dear Mom,

It feels funny to call you that. Maybe I should be calling you by your given name, Sharon. But I have a lot of things to tell you. Confessions of a sort.

Really, you're more of a mythical creature to me than a mother. A legend of a character I've built up in my mind, pieced together by my own gut feelings, my odd and unexplained personality quirks and the recollection of older relatives, some credible, others, clearly not.

I picture you much as I now see myself, young, bright and beautiful with a fierce independent streak. But I also see you in my mind's eye as deeply insecure and troubled, a seeker. A seeker of love, acceptance and understanding.

I know you had a mind of your own, otherwise, you never would have walked away from your marriage in 1967 to be with my biological father, a Black man. To say you two were the talk of the small religious town in which I was born would be a huge understatement. And then, come to find out, the son your husband thought you both shared, well, he actually ended up being your lover's. Talk about juicy!

I was your third and final child. You died under mysterious circumstances when I was 3 weeks old. No one has ever told me what happened. Well, they haven't told me the truth.

I've gotten tons of theories. I've gotten tons of claims from relatives that were right there at the time, although they weren't. It's funny isn't it, how after the fact, everyone wants to be on the scene, so to speak. I've heard you had Cervical Cancer. I've heard you had a botched hysterectomy. I've heard you became septic. I heard you died as a result of a surgical mistake years before. I've even heard that you died in childbirth. Well, we at least know that's not true.

I've tried to reconcile myself with the fact that I'll never know what happened to you. Something happened. I mean, seemingly healthy 26-year-old women don't just drop dead, not even in 1971. Honestly, it still doesn't sit well, and from time to time, I poke around, asking questions. It's hard because everyone who would have known anything is either dead or very old.

Even G, your love, is dead. He died of liver cancer a few weeks back. He, as you'd know, was 76.

Anyway, I can update you on all the comings and goings another time. This letter is about confession and I have a couple. To put it bluntly, you've been the subject of my judgment and my longing for as long as I can remember.

Let's get the unpleasantness, the judgment, out of the way first. I've been working on letting it go. I know it's not fair to you. I don't know your circumstances. I wasn't there. Well, at the end, I was there, but not in any way that grants me a right to judge. People make mistakes. I've made more than my share. But the harsh truth is, there are just some things I can't get past as far as you're concerned.

First, it burns me that you had these children, my brother and my sister, and never cared for them. My brother lived with your husband when you left to embark on your romance with your fella. You left him there! Seriously, you left a toddler to go running around with some guy? Who does that?

What were you thinking? I want to think you did what you thought was best for him, but honestly, it's damn near impossible. I also had 3 children. I was also a young mother. I had all 3 by the time I was 23 and leaving them would never, NEVER have crossed my mind!

Then, when my brother, B turned 3, your ex brought him across the border, back to Canada and straight to your mother's house. He said the child was too dark-skinned to possibly be his. But that's not the point The point is he didn't bring B to, his mother. He brought him to his grandmother, an elderly woman who had raised how many kids? He lived there, with her until you died and his uncle took him in.

Did you ever visit him? Did you take him out, to the park, or for ice cream? Did you care at all? Or were you busy living love's young dream?

Then there was my sister. There are only 16 months between us, yet she never lived with you either. No, she lived with her father's brother until you died and your boy toy's oldest brother, the man that was to become my father, had to pick up the pieces, I mean children, you left all around town.

What on Earth were you doing? I'm sorry, but I have a hard time with this. I spent every single day of my young life providing for my kids. I fed them, I housed them. I gave them love and guidance.

I wasn't perfect and I messed up a lot, but at least I was there. Where were you? What were your plans for me? Where or with whom was I going to end up? Would I have been the lucky one to live at home with you? Or would I have been pawned off as yet another inconvenience to whatever willing relative took a shine to me?

Were there other factors at play? Maybe things that were out of your control?

Did you want any of us? Did you want me?

If I'm completely honest, all this paints a picture of you I don't like. It makes you seem like a very selfish and immature person. It makes me dislike you, not just because of what you did and, more importantly, didn't do, but because I also see that tendency in myself.

There were countless days, and nights where it all felt like too much. There were endless times I wished more than anything I could run away from my responsibilities. The difference is I didn't. I stayed put. I did my time. I did what I had to do. I put my needs on the back burner to provide what my kids needed. My kids, you know, the life I created and chose to bring into the world, those guys. Yeah.

It wasn't always easy. It wasn't EVER easy!

I went hungry so my kids had their fill. I worked long hours so my kids had shelter. I went without new clothes for 12 solid years so my kids had everything they needed and most of what they wanted. What did you do? I seriously want to know. I want to understand. I NEED to understand.

Yet as much as I judged, and even resented you, I longed for you. And somehow in that longing, I longed for myself.

When you died, G's oldest brother Rudy adopted me. You remember him and his wife, Winnie. You visited them once.

The only things I had of yours were the stories and rumours passed down from the adults. I grew up, a pale-skinned, very White looking kid in a Black family. Nobody looked anything like me.

It wasn't just that they were Black, with Black hair and brown eyes and I was a porcelain doll with auburn curls and blue eyes.

It was more than that. They were pudgy, with big feet and I was rail thin with teeny, tiny feet. There were endless differences and no similarities.

That may not sound like a big deal but it really is. Most kids are able to look around at their family and see something that grounds them, something, someone that resembles them. It's something most people take for granted. It's a given. So and so has their father's nose or their mother's eyes.

I had none of that. I didn't even have a picture of you until I was 45.

It was the same for personality traits. I was nothing like my adopted family. My older brother, B.E., my parents' natural child was passive, quiet and agreeable. He was, and is, a bit of a slacker, preferring rock and roll to education, but a nice enough sort and very obedient. He never ever caused anyone any trouble.

Winnie, my adoptive mother, was very devout, very conservative and very conventional in a 1950's sort of way. She prided herself on obedience and strict adherence to rules. She prided herself in raising a son in the same tradition.

Then there was me. Like I've heard about you, I was a very bright child. Some might even say precocious. I was headstrong, oppositional and questioned everything.

I wasn't content with convention. I wasn't interested in adherence to regulations.

Being told no wasn't enough for me. I wanted and demanded reasons. Then I'd counter those reasons with my own. Rudy used to say I would have argued with the Devil himself and he wasn't wrong. Maybe that's why I became a lawyer.

I wasn't agreeable. I wasn't even close to obedient. I did what I wanted when I wanted. Winnie and I were essentially at odds for 2 entire decades. She made it very clear that I was not the type of child she wanted. She wanted one like her son. That wasn't me.

I can't begin to explain the loneliness, the deep hole in my heart you left me with. Even though I was well cared for and they tried their best, I was an island in a sea of strangers.

I had no anchor. I had no predecessor. There was no rock for me to be a chip off of.

In a very real and profound way, I had no reason for being me. I had no reason for being at all. The best way I can describe it is to say I felt very much like an alien, a creature from a distant planet, that was dropped into a random Earth family and tasked with fitting in to learn the ways of the humans.

I'm not sure you know how damaging that is for a kid, but trust me when I say it's bad. I've questioned myself for decades. I've tortured myself with feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy for most of my life.

I did bad things. I dabbled in drugs and booze in high school. I dabbled in boys and sex. I got pregnant. I allowed myself to be used, demeaned and abused and called it the price of admission.

I was THAT desperate to belong to someone, to something, to belong somewhere. I was THAT desperate to be able to point to anyone or anything and call it mine. It never worked.

I never even knew it was you I was missing until your brother's girl, Kim (more about her another time) sent me a friend request on Facebook. Yeah, I know, you have no idea about that. Suffice to say, it's like calling someone on the phone, but with pictures and words typed out and it's instant. Things have come a long way since 1971.

Anyway, this Kim, she asked if I'd like a few pictures of you. I was stunned! I can actually remember sitting in my bedroom, working on a case when I read her message. I, of course, said yes.

She sent 3 or 4 and I felt a tremble go throughout my body. I felt tears well up in my eyes. Even though I never knew you, just the image of you, a simple photograph, did more for me than you'll ever know.

You were so beautiful! More beautiful than I am, I think. But the most beautiful thing was that I was able to finally look at someone and see a glimpse of myself. The mouth, the full lips, the slender jaw and neckline, the keen eyes.

Here's me at the same age:

Okay, styles change and it's not an identical match, but people say they can see the resemblance and I can too.

Those pictures were the beginning of my healing. It took a while, but I'm okay now. There are still tons of questions I have. And I still want answers to all of them. But at least those pictures put a few missing pieces back into the puzzle that is my life. They gave me a sense of self that I so desperately needed.

I still don't understand or like the choices you made. But I am grateful to you both for giving me life and for leaving some small trace of yourself behind for me to hold onto.

Yours Truly,

The Baby You Never Knew

PS: I'm not a baby anymore. I'm almost 51 and you have 9 grandchildren and at least 6 great-grandchildren. Three of your grandchildren are mine. Oh, and B, he's bald now. Can you imagine that? All that hair, just...gone!