Gift

Kelsey and me

Because ‘tis the season, our theme for this month’s Open Mic Night at The Onyx Grounds in Sierra Vista was presents or presence. I have been so busy working on a memoir that I forgot to write something to present (Oh! Here it is again.) So, imagine my surprise when I sat down to work on the last chapter of the book (Finally!) yesterday morning to see that over two years ago, I titled the chapter GIFT.

The memoir is about how giving up my daughter for adoption and how chronic health issues have shaped my life. I have included several journal quotes throughout the manuscript. Those you will see in italics. Below is what I read last night in the company of amazing writers, poets, and musicians.

GIFT

June 26, 2019

I sent Kelsey a birthday card. I hope she reaches out. I would love to see her in July.

I received an email from Kelsey. She was ready to meet me. For three years, I sent letters. Each was brief and stunted as though written by a child holding a crayon. The fear of scaring her away kept me from sharing anything important about myself. Instead, I wrote about the weather and the orchard. I mentioned my garden and the Christmas tree we harvested one year in the Gila National Forest. I also wrote to her each time I made plans to return to Wisconsin:

September 12, 2017

Dear Kelsey,

I am coming home October 12-17 to see friends and family. My friend has a lake house in East Troy near you. A quiet place to meet is available if you are comfortable doing so. If you are not ready, I understand.

Much Love,

Beth

By the time I received Kelsey’s email, I knew a great deal about her life. Social media and public records made it possible for me to find out where she lived, where she worked as a nurse, what her husband did for a living, where her kids went to school, where her parents lived, who her friends were, and where she and her family spent holidays and vacations. Kelsey had two children when I first found her, a son who was ten and a little girl who would be 5 that summer. A year later, she had twins—a boy and a girl whose milestones I witnessed in real-time on Facebook. A sense of deep connection fueled my hours online when in truth, I was stalking her. Because I loved her, my actions seemed justified rather than intrusive.

Her email was brief and shattered any illusion that I knew a single thing about my daughter. I had never heard her laugh or cry. I didn’t know the touch of her skin against mine or the scent of her shampoo. What I had collected from trolling her online were simply silhouettes of a beautiful, young woman who had now accepted an invitation to meet her birth mother. The email held such promise, and I was ashamed of my actions.

I wrote back asking where and when she would like to meet. My family and friends were happy for me. It was like I had announced an engagement or a pregnancy. Their support and enthusiasm were infectious, and yet I felt like I was preparing for a blind date. What should I wear? Should I bring her a little something? What will we talk about? And most importantly, Will she like me? The stress and excitement caused a myriad of symptoms including joint pain, migraines, and a low-grade fever while I packed for the trip. I had always worried that I would succumb to the chokehold chronic illness had on my life before meeting my daughter, but I had survived. And when I boarded the plane to go home, my migraine was quieted by the desire to meet my daughter. Both physical pain and the grief of giving up Kelsey were woven tightly inside me for decades. For the first time, I felt the frayed threads of Kelsey coming loose to form something new. A bittersweetness that felt like hope.

I stayed with my sister Kelli and her husband Carl in Green Bay. “How do I look?” I asked Kelli before leaving for Kelsey’s house, a three-hour drive south.

“You look fine. How do you feel?”

I had tossed and turned the night before and was exhausted. I rummaged through my purse for medicine to quiet a migraine and for a pair of sunglasses. “I’m a wreck,” I said.

“Call as soon as you get there.”

“I’ll call on my way home. Are you sure I look okay?”

Kelli hugged me. “She won’t care. It’s time to go, Beth. You don’t want to be late.”

…

Kelsey and her family lived in a two-story house a block from the high school where her husband taught art. I don’t remember what I wore that day or if I brought something for her and the kids. Kelsey was waiting at the door as I walked up the front porch steps. “I’m Beth,” I said

She let out a breathy giggle. “I know.”

Just inside the door we hugged, and I felt her skin against mine and breathed in the scent of her hair. She pulled away, tears streaming down her face. Wiping them away, she said. “I cried first.”

She was confident and matter-of-fact like my sisters Kelli and Sarah. Her cocoa-brown eyes, the eyes I had searched for in countless girls I found online were those of the infant I had held thirty years before. There was so much to say and so much to atone for.

We hugged each other again, both of us crying; the threads of time coiled at our feet. This was now our story. The one we would write together going forward.