I was hoping she’d just give me mom’s contact information, but she was a woman of integrity and said “I can’t give you her address, but write her a letter, put it in an envelope with just her name on it. Put that inside another envelope and address that to me. I’ll put her address on the letter you write and mail it for you. You can even call me next week to make sure it went out.”
The letter I wrote was quite innocuous. I figured that my mother had moved on after college and created a new life and had never told anyone about the child she had borne. While I had suffered through the abandonment issue in my early adult years, I had worked through most of my disappointment, hurt, shame, resentment and anger and really just wanted to connect with her again. In the letter, I mentioned my father’s name and said I’d like to talk with her. I mailed it to my dorm mate, confirmed the letter had been mailed, and waited. Nothing.
After I graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA and was living in a high-rise on N. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago overlooking Lake Michigan, a golf course and a marina, I became even more determined to let her know I was living a great life. I called the alumni office again. My friend had since moved on, but I worked out the same arrangement with her replacement.
This time, I took a sampling of photographs my mother had taken of me growing up. (I always wondered why we had so many pictures of me.) I decided she must have been documenting my life for that eventual day when mom and daughter actually meet. I took pictures of me dressed up for Easter, sitting in front of a Christmas tree, in front of the piano showing off the report card when I received my second double promotion in school, the first marriage, my graduation from the U of C. I wrote a detailed autobiography and shipped it all to the alumni office. I waited. Nothing. Weeks, months, years go by. I decided she definitely didn’t want to be found.
A few years later, Dad died of renal failure. More years pass. I moved to California. I thought about mom from time to time. I hired an investigator who grimaced when I told him my mother’s last name, Jones. I had no birth date, no social security number, no known address, no current name. The investigator did a cursory search overwhelmed me with a 16-page list of Marjorie Joneses spread all around the country.
The following year, the adoption laws in Illinois changed and records were being opened. I contact the adoption agency and find out that they are indeed, facilitating reunions. For $150 and a 6-month wait, I could have access to my mother! They re-opened my file and sent me my first year “well baby” reports. I read the entries about how much I weighed, what kind of food I ate, that I could sit up unsupported, smile, and walk while holding on to furniture. The last entry was “You carried, hugged and kissed your doll…You understood very simple directions such as ‘go get your hat’…You tried to lace your shoes…You wanted a quilt over you every time you went to bed…You joined your adoptive family on July 18, 1952.” And at that point, I cried.
I’m not sure what happened after that. Three more years passed by before I took any further action. In 1999, I called the agency to request support in a reunion. They offered suggestions to help prepare me and said that for $450 (inflation, I guess), they could conduct the search and reunion. I had left corporate America, had started a business and was strapped for cash. The agency said they could accept payments and that the first payment would hold my place in line, so I sent in the first installment.
During the time I was making payments, I was told that my mother might have died. The woman with whom I was working wouldn’t confirm it, but suggested that mom might be gone (and along with that, my chance to hug her and feel her heartbeat again).
It took a few months for me to put the money together for the reunion and after I mailed the final installment, I called the office to let them know it was ‘in the mail’. Then, they dropped the bomb. The new social worker told me that they had lost my file! Lost?!? The keys to my life are lost?!?
The agency refunded my money and apologized profusely, but it was little consolation. I’d been so close to finding her and now I was back to square one. Every 6 months or so, I’d call and ask if the file had been found. I’d ask what ideas they had to help me find her. Fortunately, turnover at the agency was low and I was able to talk to the same couple of women for years. After a while, one of them made several suggestions about how I could do my own search.
I contacted the alumni office again, purchased an alumni directory, and went online. Armed only with her name and an approximate age, but no birth date, I kept running into brick walls. I found one online investigator who said she could help, but only if I had a birth date or social security number.
