Love Letters to Anne

It would be three months from the time I contacted her to the time I was able to first be held, and hold, her. I remember it was a hectic kind of day with airports and terminal changes…I was tired, but there she was, standing by the Christmas tree. I had texted her what my shirt would look like since we wore masks for the Covid risk.

So, when she saw me she started jumping up and down excitedly. Our eyes were shrink wrapped in joyful tears. I held onto her like she did to me. We were the only ones in the terminal, the only ones in the world. I was holding my momma, for the very first time in my life…I was fifty years old.

I remember it was bitter cold to me. It was November. The wind cut right through us as we waited outside for our rideshare. I wanted momma to not have to drive at night with the excitement of meeting for the first time, it was a good decision. I don’t think she stopped touching me until we got back to her house; home.

I don’t remember much of what happened that first night, we talked and talked and I gave her some artifacts of my past, the adoption documents I possessed. They were a concrete, if surreal, reminder that all of this was real. The nightmare had indeed existed and we were now awakened from it, the evil over.

I would over time present her with many artifacts of my life. Childhood tokens she could touch and hold onto to feel a bit closer to my past. We missed so much. My first word, my first kiss, my first girlfriend. All the places where I had been empty, were now filled. And I could relax a bit. Shell shocked, but set free. The bondage broken by my own hand after all this time. It reminded me of a lesson I learned with some friends one afternoon in Italy:

The group of us hooligans was solid at about 5. We were walking back from the next town on the train tracks. These tracks had been decommissioned after World War II, they had been used by the Nazis and the Fascists to supply various strategic areas like the pillboxes and tank depots. Now they were our private corridor between towns.

We came upon a frame with car rims on it…A CART! It was chained to a pole, and held fast with a Master Lock. We began attacking the lock with stones and anything we thought might put pressure on the lock mechanism and get it to release. We beat on the chain and lock for about two hours straight. Then finally, it popped open and the cart was ours! Gleefully we took off on the cart taking turns pushing and riding down the tracks. Patience and persistence. That’s what won the day all those summers ago. That’s what brought me to momma now.

I squeezed her hand and held her. We cried a mixture of happiness and loss. I told her stories and showed her relics of the past. Most of these relics I would give to her. See, for some reason I saved a bunch of things from my childhood that ultimately I would give or show to momma. Like my copper clad baby shoes. I didn’t know why I kept them, what I was storing them with me for, but now I knew. All these things that would help to bring my life into perspective for momma. She considers all these things treasures. They were more than just photographs. Tangible items, old toys, old books, old clothes like my scout uniform and belt. My aquarium Stranding Team hat and bathing suit from when I did volunteer work at a local aquarium that did rescue and rehab for various marine mammals and turtles.

So many things like this to bring it all to life for her. It made it worth carrying all these years because I was really close to letting it all go.

Streamlining was appealing to me.

And now, instead, I was playing show and tell with my momma. All the receipts I had to prove my stories if there was ever any doubt. I had been used to keeping proof of things because so many things had happened that were so outrageous as to be beyond belief at first. I grew accustomed to not being believed in my life. Accustomed to things getting dicey and needing a way to prove myself innocent at times. All of this resulted in my keeping certain things throughout my life. It was unfortunate, but necessary.

And now, I had momma. An unshakeable ally. My biggest cheerleader. My steadfast fan. And things were different now. The struggle was over. I found her.