Sad Separation, Glorious Reunion: A Story

I like stories. 

I like stories that are told by the person to whom the story happened. And I like stories that are told by people who specialize in telling the story of others.

I like stories that are delivered orally, or that have been turned into a movie, or written as a book or magazine article.

I like stories that are told to teach lessons or to inspire and motivate. And I like stories that are told because they portray the real-life experience of real people who are radically different from us—or who are so much like us that they could actually be us. 

I not only like to listen to or watch or read such stories, I like to share them. But before a story can be shared, it must be discovered. And, typically, the best stories come from the most unlikely people in the most unexpected places. 

Like at a flea market, for example. 

About three years ago, Leonie, my wife, and I were at a flea market. She loves such places. To her, flea markets resemble haphazard museums with no explanatory labels attached. So you get to figuratively paw through heaps of things to see what treasures you can find.

But the items for sale are only part of the attraction. The colorful characters who are selling their assortment of flotsam and jetsam are equally intriguing. And because Leonie and I have been known to return to such places repeatedly, we get acquainted with some of the vendors, learning a bit more about their life story and what makes them tick as they do. And that’s how I got the story I’m about to tell you. 

We had become first-name-acquainted with a husband-and-wife vendor team who I’ll call Andy and Sarah. They offered an assortment of items, but specialized in quality old linens and lace—a temptation to which Leonie is particularly susceptible.

Unlike most of the vendors, Sarah made sure that her linens and lace were ironed to perfection and neatly displayed on hangers.

“How do you find time to do all that ironing,” Leonie asked, not able to hide how impressed she was by the elegant presentation of the items.

“My 93-year-old mother lives with us,” Sarah said, “and she likes to iron. Even more than liking to iron, she likes the way things look when they’ve been ironed. She keeps track of how many pieces of linen and lace she has ironed since she came to live with us—and has racked up more than one thousand items so far.”

Both numbers—93 years of age and more than one thousand items of linen or lace—drew exclamations of amazement from us. Which led, as often is the case in a free-flowing conversation, to another number about a different topic.

Sarah let slip that she was turning 66 in a few days—and she wasn’t sure that at age 93 she’d be volunteering to do ironing for one of her daughters! Which led Leonie to ask how many children she had.

“I have four,” Sarah replied. And the look on her face and the tone of her voice made it clear that Leonie had hit on a topic that Sarah was more than happy to talk about. “My oldest daughter is 50, and . . .” 

I’m sorry to report that I didn’t hear what she said about the ages of her other three children. Mental math isn’t my strong suit. But even I could quickly calculate that if Sarah was still 65 and her oldest daughter was 50, she’d gotten into child production at a rather young age. So, perhaps indiscreetly, I commented about it.

“Yes,” Sarah said without hesitation, “I was 15 and still in high school.” It was clear she wanted to tell the story. 

“When I got pregnant, I wanted to keep the baby and stay in school. But my parents and the adults around me wanted to shield me—or themselves—from the shame of my pregnancy. So I was sent out of state to a home for unwed mothers. 

“I stayed there until I gave birth to my little girl—who I was allowed to hold in my arms for a few minutes after she was born. I gave her the name Melissa. [Not her real name, but what we’ll call her here]. 

“Melissa was beautiful. I couldn’t feast my eyes enough on that lovely, angelic little face. Then they came and took my little girl away—and all I had left was a memory.” 

But the memory wasn’t just of the angelic face of little Melissa. It included a vivid recollection of prenatal ekicks, bounces and bouts of hiccups in utero. And it included the knowledge that in another state, filed away under seal, was a legally registered birth certificate declaring Sarah to be that little girl’s mother—even though she would probably never see Melissa again or learn anything more about her for the rest of her life.

The emotion in Sarah’s voice was palpable as she shared the facts as well as her feelings. Her tears glistened in the sunlight of that hot Florida morning as other flea-market patrons passed nearby unaware of the heartfelt story that was being shared.

Sarah continued: A few years passed. She met Andy. They fell in love. They married. They had three children. All of them beautiful. All of them wonderful. All of them reminders of her heart-grabbing little first-born with whom she’d spent only 10 minutes.

But Sarah had a different attitude from that of her parents about her youthful indiscretion. Her parents had whisked her far away from home so the stigma of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy wouldn’t taint her image. Or theirs.

In contrast, Sarah shared the story with each of her next three children. She explained how she considered them to be her second-born, her third-born and her fourth-born—because they had an older sister, who they probably would never meet but who she loved deeply and who was her first-born. 

She wanted them to love Melissa, as well.

Whenever Sarah and Andy’s offspring were asked how many children were in their family, they always said four. And they described the circumstances, explaining why only three of them were ever seen around the neighborhood. 

Years passed. Sarah and Andy’s three younger children grew to adulthood. They heard stories about adopted children who searched for their birth parents. They knew that Catholic Charities had provided Sarah’s prenatal accommodations and had overseen Melissa’s adoption process. So they contacted Catholic Charities to find out if there was anything they could do that would make it easier for Melissa to make contact should she ever want to do so. And there was something. 

They were sent a detailed form for their mother to fill out. It asked for confirmation that the birth mother would be happy to be contacted, and it asked for rudimentary information about how to contact her. When they brought the form to Sarah, urging her to send it in, she was delighted by her children’s desire to have her make connections with her first-born.

But life is busy. And life can at times be frightening. Though Sarah desperately wanted to meet her long-separated daughter, she had no way of knowing how Melissa might view things. Would it be selfish to interrupt a life that might be moving along smoothly? More years passed before she had the time and could summon the courage—at the same moment—to get the form filled out and sent back to Catholic Charities.

Meanwhile, Melissa, who had been given another first name by her adoptive parents, found herself more and more curious about her biological origins. She began making inquiries and discovered that there probably was an original birth certificate somewhere.

A judge warned her that sometimes pursuing contact with a birth parent turns out badly. Certainly, there are stories about such ventures that turn out wonderfully. But others fall far short of expectation. 

“I’m a big girl,” Melissa assured the judge. I’m capable of dealing with it, whatever reality I encounter.” So he allowed her to access her birth certificate, which had been sealed until then.

But, just like Sarah, Melisa too was hesitant. She likewise procrastinated. She needed time to process the data she’d discovered on her birth certificate. Merely imagining things seemed safer than digging too deeply too quickly.

Melissa had a friend who worked for ATT who had access to phone numbers across the nation. But they couldn’t find a number for Sarah—or for Sarah’s mother, whose signature was on the birth certificate, since Sarah had been under age at the time of Melissa’s birth.

More time passed.

As Melissa pondered what to do next, a word popped into her head: Internet. “Why haven’t I searched the Internet?” She wondered aloud. On the very first attempt, she tracked down Sarah’s mother’s address and phone number. 

The judge had told her, these things don’t always work out well. So she didn’t make the phone call immediately. But she didn’t procrastinate as long this time. Then she summoned her courage and got on the phone. 

No one answered.

And no one answered the next time. 

Nor the next.

Nor the next.

She continued trying.

Then one day, a woman did answer. 

Melissa was terrified. She’d become so accustomed to no answer that she was caught off guard. Totally at a loss for words, she stammered out the first thing she could think of: “I’m sorry. I must have dialed the wrong number!” Then she hung up. 

However, the next time she called, she explained who she was and why she was making contact. She introduced herself to her grandmother and asked if she thought Sarah would want to be contacted. Her grandmother assured her that such contact would be welcomed with open arms. Sarah was jubilant when she heard the news. It was a seemingly impossible dream come true.

And so the connection was made. 

Hours were spent on the phone. Pictures were exchanged. Stories were told. There was no question as to the biological relationship between the two women: They were the “spittin’ image” of each other. 

And then came the time for them to meet. 

Sarah arranged to fly to the city where Melissa lived. Needless to say, emotions and joys and fears and a lot of other feelings ran high in anticipation of the grand reunion. No one needed to have worried, however. The two women connected amazingly as their laughter and tears and stories gushed out and blended together. 

Because Melissa knew that Sarah was into flea markets, she suggested that on their first day together, they could go to a flea market not far from her home. So they went. 

As they were looking at the items on one of the tables, joking about why they might or might not need a particular item, the vendor said, “You know, it’s really inspiring to see an adult daughter and her mother who have such a truly beautiful relationship.”

Sarah and Melissa looked at each other, then burst out laughing. “Shall we tell her?” one of them asked the other, who responded with an affirming nod.

“We are indeed mother and daughter,” Sarah replied to the now-intrigued vendor. “But the truth is, we met each other for the first time only a few hours ago—well, except for when I held her for about ten minutes right after she was born.”

Tears moistened the laugh lines around Sarah’s eyes as she described that oh-so-appropriate comment by that flea market vendor—and as she concluded her description of the oh-so-wonderful relationship that now exists between her long-separated daughter and all the members of her family. 

I shared an oral version of the preceding story to illustrate some point in a sermon at Graceworx about three years ago.