I gaze out over the vast ocean. I come here alone. I come here because I need something really big to look at right now. Something bigger than my thoughts, and I need to send my feelings off on the cool breeze that blows by me. Every year on this day I come to this secluded spot on the beach, in this small little town that is becoming more and more familiar to me as the years pass. The questions in my mind however have always been the same. How do you miss someone you never got to know? How do you love someone who was never there? How do you mourn a loss that is not yours?

It has been almost 50 years sense my mother gave birth to me, and gave me away. I've always hated that term, "gave away" or even worse "gave up." 

Like she had just decided to quit something. I have had to live with those words, those definitions of my existence my whole life. Until recently they really defined who I was as a person. An unwanted baby, an unloved child, a mistake my birthparents made. When you go through life as a child with a big question mark about who you really are, things get very difficult to say the least.

My adoptive parents, who are my parents by all rights did try to answer those questions. They tried to fill the hole and seal all the gaps. Especially my father when I was younger. I exhausted them with my questions, but the older I grew and the more different I looked from them I believe took a toll of it's own. I love my parents dearly, and I thank God for bringing me to them, but I needed to know where I came from. Who were the people behind the big question mark?

Finding out about my birthparents sent me on a quest that has lasted 3 decades, a few breakdowns, and one huge identity crisis when I found out that my birthmother actually gave me a name and what it was. That was the first shocking piece of news. I was very early in my search and still did not know much about how the adoption process actually went. For me, my birthmother filled out all the necessary forms, gave me a name, relinquished parental rights and those records were "sealed". Never to be seen again. A new birth certificate was created with the name my adoptive parents gave me, and so a new identity followed.

So what about the "me" that was here first? For those first five days at the hospital with my birthmother? I needed to find that me, the "real me", the person who stares right back at me in the mirror. So taking what little information I had I pressed on in my search. It took me far from my home and everyone I knew. It brought me to this small southern town where my birthmother was from, where she grew up with her family, before she had me.

After a lot of research and years of untying secrets and hidden information I had finally found out not only where my birthmother was from but also where she was now. In a little cemetery in South Carolina. I would never be able to meet her in person, but I prepared for the visit just like I was going to visit family. I wore my favorite dress and fussed with my hair and make up as if she would have something to say about it. Life or death, I wanted to make a good first impression.