One of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my life took place in October of 2016. That month the son, I had been forced to leave and relinquish for adoption, 49 years before, emailed me and reunited with me through the miracle of Ancestry.com DNA.
The exquisite joy of my son finding me left me giddy, fearful, and beyond walking on air for months after. I can honestly say, it was one of the most exciting and miraculous times in my life.
The dilemma was that I had given birth to this secret son, while a teenager in an Unwed Mother’s Maternity Home in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had been allowed to give him the crib name, Jamie, and only been permitted to hold him twice. I was told once I left him, I should forget that this unfortunate and sinful experience ever happened. We unwed teenagers were made to feel like criminals, damaged goods. In the sixties the stigma and shame of having a baby out of wedlock was cruel and unrelenting.
Six months later I left my childhood home filled with shame and guilt, married to the first man who asked me and moved to California. I was determined to leave my old life and begin a new life.
I held the truth of my son close to my heart and tried to forget the whole experience. I began creating a new me. I became the mother of three more tiny sons within seven years and my life revolved around raising them and proving to myself and the world that I was worthy of being a mother. Life continued in its splendid chaos. Over the long years I divorced the wrong man I had married simply to escape the south, became a single mom, started a career, married the right man gaining 2 more children through marriage. Our children grew up, we became grandparents and my life was full and purposeful. I could not have asked for more.
Could I?
The truth is no matter who I became, I could never forget that baby boy who had grown inside of me for 9 months. He was part of me and I can only compare it to losing an arm, a leg, or a chunk of my heart. A day did not pass that I did not mourn the loss of Jamie. Yet I continued to hold that hard kernel truth within me. He was imprinted in my very being, invisible to all but me.
Hence the problem. My son had been my complete secret for 49 years and now here he was healthy, happy, and successful. He was married with three children. He was kind and did not resent me or blame me for leaving him. He had been raised by loving and devoted parents, decades older than the teenage girl who had given birth to him. He was real. He was my son. I was smitten, in love, and filled with the joy that a new mother feels when she first holds her newborn and looks into his face.
On Oct 9, 2016, I was still living with the buried sadness and shame of having to have given up my baby, as if I was still 17 years old and the year was 1967. The next day on Oct. 10, my son, who had been named Richard after his adoption, was no longer a secret. We were reunited and within hours I wanted to shout to the world, “My son has found me. I have another son.” It was a glorious miracle he had found me yet daunting as to how I would go about shouting out this fantastic news. I quickly devised a plan with my husband. Thankfully I had confessed my secret to him 36 years before and he had honored my choice not to disclose it.
The plan was to tell our other children first and next tell family members and close friends one by one.
I wanted was to see my son and be with him quickly but first I had to announce his ‘birth’. The most beloved and important people in our lives deserved to know this story about my past and his birth before anyone else.
Through many tears, some hard to explain confessions, and a lot of hope, I weaved my way through the telling of Jamie, who was now Richard. Here is where my humbling and renewed faith in mankind took place.
My adored three sons, and beloved two step children all handled this news remarkably well after their initial shock and sadness that I had lived with such a painful secret. I was grateful and proud of my tender and loving adult sons. They would welcome their new sibling with open arms. I had never loved them more. Other family members received the news with shock, love and good wishes for the reunion of myself and my son. Our friends were unbelievably kind and full of love for me after they assimilated the shock of my story. I had never dreamed possible the support and love they showered on me. As I said, I had wrapped myself in that quilt of shame from the sixties for decades.
Out of at least 30 of my dearest friends I told the story to only one person, and I can honestly say I wasn’t surprised because of who that person was, gasped when I told her my story and whispered in a concerned horrified voice, “Oh, no. What are people going to say?”
It was the sixties all over again.
In her defense, I like to think this was said with true worry for me and my feelings. I quickly steeled myself and blurted out, “I don’t give a damn what people are going to say. My son has found me and nothing can take this magnificent joy away.”
A huge boulder was released. Relief flowed through me like golden honey. It was in that minute that the shame, the guilt and the horror I had lived with melted a little. Forgiveness for myself begin to slowly warm me. Intellectually, I had known this was a different and less judgmental society in 2016. Intellectually, I had known I had no choice in the matter of giving up my son as an unprepared teenage mother with no support. Yet, hearts are mysterious and splendid muscles and heart memory had held me hostage.
In finding me my son, Jamie/Richard began the process to set me free. Slowly but surely my heart began to mend as I tiptoed out into the world, shouting to whoever would listen.
I believe in miracles. My son is a secret no more and life is good. Life is great.