With love and gratitude....Happy Mother's Day!

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~ Melody Beattie

I share Mother's Day with Gerards' Mother...we are different. We each have our uniqueness...we each have a special place in his heart...he has my eyes...she dried his tears...he resembles my family...she provided him with a loving home...he is built like our family...she watched him grow...most of all we both love him...I have always shared this day with her.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I look at this picture and say that there are not enough words in the English language to describe the feelings for me here. This is a picture of my son and me when we met after 42 years of separation. This is a picture of love that is so pure that it makes my heart soar. This is a picture of gratitude.

I am a birth mother, who placed her son up for adoption in 1969. It was not only a very difficult decision for me to make but also the most loving and unselfish act I have ever done in my life. I placed him in the arms of a couple who would love and nurture him beyond what I was capable of doing at 18 years old. I placed him in a home where he would be able to grow with two parents who would care for him. I placed him knowing that I might never know or see him, but for his sake I was willing to do that. I placed him because I loved him beyond measure.

My heart placed him in a very safe placed where he has lived with me for 42 years. There were times when I feared for him, there were times when I ached for him, and there were times when I felt he was right beside me. He has always been a part of my make-up. He helped to make me a better mother to my two other children, and a better and more compassionate person. He often held my hand during difficult times and allowed me to love in a better way. He gave me strength some days, and tears on others as the years passed. Although I wished to know him, I did not have a desire to disrupt the life that he and his parents had formed. I wished only the highest and best for them as a family.

And then a miracle occurred.

This past Mother's Day weekend (2012) I connected with my son, when my heart opened and poured out buried information. He was there on an adoption registry site waiting for me. He had started a blog looking for me 11 years earlier. With a phone call I would be talking with him. If I say I was without fear that would not be true. We talked for hours that first night, we exchanged e-mails and phone calls for weeks till we finally met for the second time in 42 years. We embraced, we cried, we sighed and we connected our hearts once again. Mother and son reunited to explore a relationship with each other, to express the unspoken love that has always been there. To share who we are with each other and our extended families. I am not only a mother, but I am now the proud grandmother of 3 precious children, and a mother-in-law to a new daughter, all who have always known about me. I feel complete, I am healing, and the feeling of coming full circle is ever present as our bond grows with each passing day.

What do you say to the parents who raised a child who was placed for adoption? How do you thank them for raising a child to be a wonderful adult? How do you let them know that your sudden appearance is not meant to disrupt their life? That they have nothing to fear from you ,as you are not out to either take their place or harm anyone?

There are not enough words in the English language to thank my sons' parents for the love they gave him. They provided him with a home that grounds him, that allows him to be who he is now. They provided love that allowed him to also hold me in his heart. I still do not wish to disrupt their life, but I do wish to be a part of my sons' life now.

Thank you seems so little to say to them, but it is the only thing I know to say.
With all my heart I say THANK YOU. ***

*** this is an article I wrote for an on line adoption magazine: Adoption Voices