With Christmas just around the corner, I’m sharing an excerpt
from Christmas 1998 a few months before my birth-daughter Sarah and I were
reunited in our Adoption Reunion. This excerpt is from my memoirs just released
this 2016, Finding
Sarah Finding Me,
Because Christmas isn’t easy for everyone, at least
not every year.
Excerpt from Finding Sarah Finding Me:
A few
days later, with the adoption file containing Sarah’s and her parents’ legal
names in my hand, I phone the reunion support group. I don’t really know what
to expect, but I’d like some advice on the next step toward reunion. The
resulting rollercoaster of phone calls in one afternoon comes as a shock. As
soon as I tell the other member of the support group, she starts a computer
search on the voting registry for Anne and Hans VandenBos. Moments later,
feeling again like the Cold War spy, I write Sarah’s home address down on a pad
of paper. What do I do with this? Walk up to their door and ring the bell, and
say, “Hi, I’m Sarah’s birth mom. Have you been waiting for me as long as I’ve
been waiting for you?”
For half
a minute I want to giggle. In reality, I need my adoption counselor to smooth
the way, and I write Bob a long letter bringing him up to date. A week later he
calls.
When I
sit in his office again, Bob’s brow puzzles over what could have happened to
the first letter I wrote for Sarah. He can’t remember receiving it, but my
friend assured me she had delivered it. Bob thinks perhaps he stuck it at the
back of an old cabinet when he moved some files.
But
nothing ever fazes Bob. With a grin, he asks me to write another letter to
Sarah. He’s also been wondering why he hadn’t heard from me since our first
talk, and I wonder what happened to the numerous voicemail messages I left him.
Is Bob juggling too many counseling cases and put me on the back burner? Had he
simply forgotten me? Or maybe Bob has become a bit cavalier doing monumental
work, such as taking a baby from one woman to give that baby to another woman. As cavalier as God?
It
doesn’t matter though. On this section of the emotional rollercoaster God must
have slowed the process in answer to my prayers, to prepare Sarah and her
parents for the reunion. And now God is speeding up the process. I can accept
this. After all, God is God. I stuff my previous disappointment down deep. The
heavenly Father isn’t going to let me down like my earthly dad did.
Meanwhile,
Bob leans back in his chair with a chuckle and fills me in on memories he’d
been unable to share with me at the time I relinquished Sarah. Nineteen years
earlier, Bob and his wife had taken care of Sarah in their apartment at Trinity
Western University. It comes as a surprise to me that Bob and Beverly cared for
my child the first night she’d been apart from me. I’d always assumed they’d
taken her directly from me to her adoptive parents. A slim shaft of hurt arrows
through my ribcage, cutting off my breath. As if I’d been kept in the dark all
those years ago. When Bob had phoned me that night after I’d come home from
hospital I’ had no idea my baby slept in his arms.
If I’d known then, would I have asked for
her back?
But I
shake off this tiny sense of betrayal. It no longer matters. Now the search is
back on track, and I can afford to laugh….
….That
sweet little memory of Bob’s erases a tiny bit of that new shadow in me, that
sense of loss, knowing now where she’d actually been after I’d said goodbye. I
stuff my jealousy deep into a crevice of my heart.
Before I
leave Bob’s office, he says, “It’s only a few weeks until Christmas. Better
wait until after New Year to deliver your letter to Sarah and her parents, so
we don’t intrude upon their family time.” Family time. I nod and smile, but
inside I shrivel. I understand. Still, hurt stabs once more that I’m not
considered family. And David and our kids aren’t family to Sarah either. The
desire to run and hide shrouds me again. So much for my confidence of only
moments ago. Oh, who am I kidding?
The fear
of rejection continues to hammer me on the drive home. During the Christmas
holidays I leave a voicemail for Bob that it would be best to call the whole
thing off. Better to stay in the shadows, let Sarah live her life without the
awkward addition of a birth mother who doesn’t really fit into any family
dynamic.
Bob
calls back that night. “You’ve trusted God all these years, Christine. Don’t
stop trusting now.”
To read more about Christine Lindsay and
her fictional novels as well as her memoir, go to her website www.christinelindsay.org
So powerful and moving!
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