Mother’s love is unconditional. The bond of a mother and child cannot be expressed in words. The pain of giving your child away is unbearable. But this woman had no choice but to do it when she was young. However, the joy of reuniting with her child is truly a blessing. (Thanks Thomas for sharing this story with us through our page).
She had me when she was FOURTEEN. And I (24M) was given up for adoption. My parents told me about her growing up. I still have the letter she wrote me that she asked if they could give it to me if they wanted!
It’s crazy reading it sometimes and knowing it was a literal child who wrote it saying she’s sorry she couldn’t be my mommy but she hopes I’m happy. She was open to having contact but we moved for my dad’s job when I was 11 and then it seemed impossible to find her.
But luckily I did. She’s working at this small restaurant and I keep going but she doesn’t know it’s me. We talk sometimes. And she seems like a nice lady. Sometimes when she says something like “do you want a refill, honey” or uses another term like that I wanna tell her. Idk why it makes me nervous. We talk sometimes and she seems really genuine. If it’s not super busy she’s more open to talking about random stuff.
I literally drive 2 hours to come to eat at this place just to see her. And it’s like she knows me already because I’m there like once or 2 times a week for the past 3 months so she always says hi with a big smile.
One Day I finally confronted her-I reached the hotel and waited for her to be done with her shift and that was when they were closing the restaurant. And waited in the parking lot. We said hi when she saw me first but then I told her there was something serious that she needed to know. First I told her sorry for keeping it from her this long. She didn’t react until I actually pulled out her letter.
And she started bawling from there. Like screaming and crying at the same time, and didn’t even have to finish the whole “I’m your son” speech. She just saw it and knew. It was crazy. The next thing I know she’s hugging me instantly but then she pulled back and asked if it’s okay to hug me. Of it is and we’re just there hugging and crying in the parking lot.
It hit her hard though. Her legs gave out for a second so I had to actually hold her up while she’s still hugging me for a min. What really got me was her saying to me look how big you got. At the same time hearing her cry made me cry too. She went back to open the restaurant up (she wouldn’t take no for an answer) we had coffee, ate a slice of their pie inside, and talked. Soooo much stuff we talked about. She told me the second time I came to the restaurant she got a feeling but for her, it was hard to believe it was me. So that feeling she had was pushed way down.
Because she told me for years after I was adopted she saw kids that would be my age and used to think they were me. Then she would be crying in public. She says I look so much like my biological dad when he was younger though. We talked about him too. They stayed in contact with each other in case I ever reached out to one of them so it would be easier to contact the other. I didn’t have hope about finding my biological dad since he was never mentioned so I’m glad they both planned for this future scenario.
She told me about how they wanted to keep me. Especially, my biological dad, he didn’t want me to be adopted. But he knew they had to because they were just kids. It took him a long time to get past it after I was born, she told me. That’s why he didn’t leave anything because he didn’t wanna believe he might not see me again.
We talked for hours until almost 2 in the morning (they closed at 11). She just wanted to know everything about me but her main thing was “am I happy”. Were my parents good to me? Did I have a happy childhood? And I did. I told her to thank her for helping to give me this life. We both cried again. She cried the most. Everything was very emotional for her. Sometimes she would look really happy but then get sad again.
After my 18th birthday, she was hoping I would find her. That’s why she stayed in the same city. But since I didn’t she always thought maybe I resented her, wasn’t told I’m adopted, or maybe had decided it was better not to have her around. It made me feel bad for not telling her sooner. She told me it’s not my fault and I did the right thing at my own pace. Honestly, she’s so sweet.
The way she kept looking at me with the biggest smile, made me emotional sometimes. Makes you think how can someone who’s been a total stranger ur whole life look at you with so much love. It’s wild. We learned so much about each other. She asked me if we could have dinner soon to keep talking. And if at some point in the future if I’m interested come over to her house so I can meet her husband. That all sounded really great.
We swapped phone numbers. She texted me after I left to thank me for giving her this gift, saying she didn’t know whether it would ever arrive. My girlfriend came up and gave me a hug as I sobbed. These were joyous tears, not sad tears. Everything went far better than I had anticipated. Even though there was still some very difficult material, I’m glad we were able to open up to each other.