Lost or Found

Just because something finds its way to the Lost and Found, doesn’t mean it wants to be there. Just because something finds its way to the Lost and Found, doesn’t mean that the person who lost it doesn’t care for the lost item. And just because something finds its way to the Lost and Found, doesn’t mean someone will ever come to claim it.

On July 4th 1962, I found myself in the Lost and Found of mankind. One version of my story reads that I was placed there on purpose. The other version maintains that I was placed there by the person who stole me. I personally believe that it was a little of both.

I am only one child, but in total there were 22 mothers. 22 individual women who wore their own distinct “version” of what it means to be...a mother. 22 individual women who saw something totally different from the other, each and every time they looked at me. 22 different faces that I would either squeeze with all my might to remember in times of pain, heartbreak, or misery…or push away with all my might to forget.

Mother #1 fulfilled her initial duty of escorting me into this life, of keeping me safe for three weeks, of nurturing me for as long as she could. Mother #1 entrusted me to Mother #2 until such time as she could provide me and the four older siblings she kept with the home she so dreamed of.

Mother #2 fulfilled her initial duty of caring for me as if I were her own. She raised me for the next 11 years in an environment that was filled with love, security, and hope for a brighter tomorrow. She intended with all her heart to return me to Mother #1 when the time was right. But where love for me grew deeper by the second…the right time never came. She would have made better choices had she known that she would unexpectedly depart this world, without having made any provisions for my return to Mother #1. She would have died all over again from a broken heart, had she seen me handed off to Mothers 3-22, courtesy of the roulette underworld otherwise known as: The State Foster Care System.

During my five years of bouncing through the Foster System, I became more and more lost. By year five, I was acutely aware that the loss of my family, my home, my name, my entire world as I had known it…was nothing compared to what I could lose, if I did not decide soon, to better deal with my existence in the Lost and Found.

To this day, I believe it was in my seeking to find the good in all 22 of my mothers that enabled me to begin to loosen the harness of self-doubt, shame, and the hurt associated with the abuses I had experienced so far in life.

The 21 mothers that were responsible for my care after the departure of Mother #1, either taught me what a mother should always represent, or they reminded me of how not all women are capable of the true honor of being called a mother. Each of these mothers provided me with her personal version of what it meant to belong or what it meant to be excluded.

I shall never forget the moment, after 32 years of seeking, when an old neighbor called to inform me that yes, she did in fact know the woman who could very well be my birth mother—the original—my very own Eve. The neighbor went on to tell me that, she needed to call the woman first. She needed to ask if it was all right to give me the woman’s telephone number. “After all,” she said, “not everyone wants to be found.”

After 32 years, this was the moment when it dawned on me that this entire quest, this adventure that had been such a persistent part of my life…could very well have been in vain, IF Mother #1 did not wish to be found.

But this wouldn’t be much of a story if that were true now, would it? Mother #1 had kept her memory of me alive and vibrant for all those 32 years. Mother #1 did indeed wish to be found, and she opened the door to her past, her home, her heart, and my original family…simply because we were once one person.

We shared over 20 wonderful years together before we were separated a second time in this life,…by her death which, for me, came far too soon.

In finding Mother #1, I found so much of what life is truly all about. I found that family is based on LOVE…and not merely on blood. And I found that I was never truly lost, I was merely finding my way.

When I found Mother #1, I also lost some things: I lost the square root of much of the true sadness in my life. I lost the relentless commentator that resided within me, the one who would broadcast one tragedy after another, if I allowed him to do so. But most importantly, I lost the belief that my having had 22 mothers was something to be ashamed of.

I did not realize it then, but I do now: each of these women played the role they were chosen to play in my life. None of the 22 ever truly had control over whether I belonged or not…that call would always be left for me to make. It was when I broke out of these walls of self-judgment, that I discovered my greatest truth of all: that not everyone has to remain lost.