Love Letters to Anne

A great destiny. Finding my blood. Reunification of that which was broken. This is what I believed in and fought for. But it wasn’t instant, the victory took a long time. Even after the DNA submission. It took years after that before I found my cousin. Once she started searching for her answers to a different mystery of her own, we found each other. And my door opened.

I walked right through.

The entire time this was happening, I was intent on not causing turmoil. I had no intention of turning anyones life upside down. This was important to me because I value my own peace. I didn’t want to be insensitive to the needs of these people I had never met. I was coming peacefully. And whatever else may happen would happen organically and unfold in its own way.

Then for three days, the line was silent. I thought about why this may have been, and I figured that this event was enough to give pause. So I waited.

Again the doubts came…was I doing the right thing? What if I was some shameful secret? My cousin didn’t know about me, who else didn’t know?

I had to follow this path. It would be what it would be. I could be patient a bit more. I had waited my whole life to find a clue, anything, anyone to shed a light on this mystery.

My cousin came back online. She asked me a few more questions, which I was glad to answer. She said she had asked an aunt about me, and my aunt wanted to talk to me. Of course, I agreed.

I don’t recall now if it was that same day or the next that I talked with her. I had the impression I was in an interview of sorts. The aunt held answers to my momma. That was her sister. She revealed very little but in the end I asked about contact information, and while she wasn’t sure if the information was still correct, she gave me what she had.

Now, it needs to be said that I had, behind the scenes, been researching and cross referencing the leads I had already. This was too important. I couldn’t just hope. Hope is not a strategy. Hope is a wish. But hope was my fuel. So, when my aunt gave me the contact information, I checked it against what I had. There was corroboration!

I remember trembling. But even with the broken glass in my guts, I prepared for the single most important text in my life.

It was a Wednesday. Good things happen on Wednesdays. I was born on a Wednesday. Irony or fate? I had practiced what I would say. And how to say it. Draft after draft. I sent it just after 1pm that very afternoon.

Just jump.

I don’t know what I expected. Silence? A text? A call? I just didn’t know. The wind just stopped. I was in suspended animation. And I held my breath. I sent the text with a current picture. But the picture didn’t go through. Maybe the text didn’t send?

I thought back to my aunt…had she called momma? What about when I give the answers to any questions momma might have? I felt like I would be giving an account of my life, the wheres, the whys, and the hows. I would ask my questions and she would ask hers, and we would go from there.

As I’ve said before, it was a long night. I don’t remember what the rest of that day was like. I was in a daydream of what ifs. But the night was long. Nights usually are since I’ve suffered insomnia since I was a child. But this night, this night my life had changed. I had made first contact. This had been my destiny, this had been my fate and I embraced it with trembling hands. Trembling for all the reasons I’ve said before. But also, there was another consideration: my adoptive family.

Now, after all the water that’s been under that bridge, good and bad, I was still sensitive to them for some reason. They had known that I had been looking from time to time, but frustratingly, they had no answers for me. Now that I had found those answers, what would I say? I told my cousin who had been my partner in crime for most of my life the news. He was happy for me.

I was glad this was his reaction. What else should it be? Well, it could have been taken many ways actually. He knew intimately the Hell I endured because he saw the conflict between my adoptive mom and myself. I was a cautionary tale in the family. My rebellion went beyond the usual, normal rebellion of a teenager. I rebelled against everything and everyone that stood in my way. No one understood what I found to be obvious: I was stolen from where I belonged and I was angry about it.

Age mellowed my intensity to a degree. And when I finally found her, afterwards, I would have a sense of peace that I was acknowledged by my family. Even if I wasn’t welcomed, even if I wasn’t going to be accepted, I was acknowledged.

And this was enough, if it had to be.