jaeleslie

Since we last saw our heroine, she managed not to say anything horrible to her mother during the week-long visit. What she would like to say: "You had two parents, and you have one sister. This is fairly plain, and when you meet new people it is not necessary to explain the sequence of husbands. My situation is different. Do you know how many parents I have? and how many siblings? I don't even know the answer to that one! And it does come up for me. It always will."

But moving on. A month ago I mailed a copy of a personalzine to an old friend I haven't seen in some years. Yesterday I got a long letter from her, with news that staggers me. The son she gave up for adoption thirty years ago has contacted her. They have had a number of happy reunions, although they live on opposite sides of the country. In the photographs she sent, her face is beaming.

It is hard for me to explain even to myself why I am so shattered by this development. We were best friends in high school, and I was very close to her during the worst times. Giving up that child ruined her life for years, in ways that were unspeakably hard. I didn't know what a hole it had made in my own life, to see such a friend go through that. Then when she put it behind her, we lost touch. (I am used to losing touch with dear friends and relations.) But getting him back again, after all this time, is by no means the disaster the adoption authorities guarded against, and told us it would be. It is a great blessing all around.