All I have is a letter. What happened to everything else?

Snail mail isn’t used much anymore. Most letters are taxes, bills, advertisements, things people don’t want to keep. Well I on the other hand, have a letter proudly displayed in a frame in my room. You may ask, why does she have this? It’s only paper with words scrawled crookedly across the page. Well to some it may just be a messy note, but to me it’s all I know of my birth mom since I was adopted at birth. I’ve read this letter so many times I could recite it word for word. When she was eighteen, a senior in high school, she became pregnant with me. I don’t know much about her, except what she wrote in the scattered short letter. But I do know she made a choice, one that she wrote changed her life forever.

I’ll tell you what I do know. Her name is Mandy, and she lived in Plantation, Florida. Her birthday is September 29th, which at the time was about a week before she wrote the letter (which is not dated). She has brown hair and green eyes, just like I do. She lived with her mother, sister, and grandma. Her sister was around the same age she was, and her parents divorced when she was ten. She also has a half brother and half sister, both of whom she grew up with. She had recently obtained a car and drove herself to school at night. When I was born she gave me a pink elephant which my adoptive parents and I properly named after her. At the time she wanted to study business and hotel management in college. She enjoyed playing sports until she got hit by a car and was injured so she couldn’t play anymore. Oddly enough, even though I have never met her, the letter showed an area where we both had a common interest. She loved animals just like I do, and had two dogs, two cats, and a horse. I like to think of this similarity as our connection together, a bond that even if I never meet her, will keep us strong forever.

I remember a time when my mom said that I could meet my birth mom when I turned eighteen if I wanted. Discussing my birth mom with my adoptive mom is a complex situation. It’s very sensitive, so we haven’t really talked about it. I’ve thought about this a lot and I really would love to meet her. Granted, I have no idea how or where I’ll find her. Adoption agencies are very good at keeping files and information private, so that will be a long process and I honestly have no idea where to begin. I occasionally wonder if she has a new family, husband, child, or if she ever thinks about me. What if I met her and she didn’t want to meet me? Or what if she didn’t want anything else to do with me? Despite all these questions, I still want to meet her, at least to see if she’s as happy in her life as I am in mine.

Just because we’ve never met before doesn’t mean I don’t think about her. I keep her picture and letter by my bed, and I’m always thankful for what she did for me. Even though she couldn’t give me the life she wanted to, she still decided to supply a great life for me…in her own way. She provided me with a good family, a house, and a good education indirectly by putting me up for adoption. Without her doing this, I can’t even imagine how different my life would be. My friends wouldn’t be the same, I wouldn’t even live in Kentucky, and maybe I wouldn’t even play lacrosse. Many people ask if I’ve ever talked to her, and I respond no I haven’t, but maybe I’ll write her sometime about how she changed my life.