Bitter Winds ~ A Day of Remembrance

 

 

My First Mother, Norma Carol, was born on 9/11 in 1947. 
Today would be her 69th birthday. 

 

She gave birth to me as a young, unwed mother in 1968 and was one of the first to join the ALMA Registry (Adoptee's Liberation Movement) looking for her "son". 

She was told by the hospital staff and attorney, after going through a difficult labor and c-section that she had given birth to a boy. 

 

 In truth, she actually had a daughter, who, indeed, did come back, 10 years too late to meet her (again) this side of eternity. 

 

I still haven't been able to obtain birth records from the hospital, even though I needed this important information for my own medical care during pregnancy. 

Even with a court-order and doctor's request I am still waiting. 

 

As I watch the 9/11 memorials on television, I cry for the victims of a horrible act of terror, and for my Mother. 

 

It has taken several years of slowly unthawing from the nothingness I felt inside after finding my Grandmother and hearing my Mother's story.

On my own birthday a few years ago I was driving alone, listening to the radio, when a beautiful lullaby I had never heard came over the waves. 

 

It was Bette Midler singing "Baby of Mine" and the tears flowed again ~

 this time they were tears of acceptance.

 

I could finally embrace the love I knew my Mother had for me all along,

and the strong connection we share. 

I miss her.

I post this link in her memory - "Bitter Winds"

~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvO75R-QrqA ~