It took three days of searching online archives, old newspaper records, and public databases, but I finally found her.
It wasn’t good news, however. My world collapsed all over again as I read my mother’s obituary.
She’d died the previous year.
All those years I’d been lied to, and when I finally learned the truth, it was too late. There would be no reunion, and no chance to understand what had happened, or find out if she’d ever gotten better.
But I decided I could still connect with her in the only way left to me.
I could visit her grave.
I walked through the cemetery for 20 minutes before I found her grave. Her headstone was simple, just her name and two dates that bookended a life I knew nothing about.
Someone had left a bouquet of daisies that had long since dried up and turned brown.
I moved them to one side and set down the white roses I’d brought.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I wish I’d had a chance to know you, but I was never even given the choice.”
I started crying for the mother I’d never known, for the lies I’d been told, for the years we’d both lost. I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen, and I only stopped when I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned around and saw an older woman walking toward me.
When she spotted me, she pressed a hand to her heart like she’d seen a ghost.
“Marla?” she said my name like it was a prayer. “Could it be… it must be!
You look so much like Susannah.”
My heart stopped. “You knew my mother?”
She smiled sadly. “She was my sister.
Oh my God, it’s so good to see you! After everything that happened… I thought I’d never see you again.”
My mother had a sister, which meant I had an aunt.
Family I’d never known existed, standing right there.
“Oh, honey. If only I’d known, but your father cut all contact with us after the divorce.”
“Did she ever get better? Did she… ask about me?”
“I won’t lie to you, Marla.
Your mom struggled all her life, but she had good moments.” She smiled at me. “And when she did, she missed you fiercely. She loved you so much.”
I was crying so hard that was all I could do.
“My name is Tanya,” my aunt said, handing me a tissue.
“Let’s go get a coffee and talk. We have so many years to catch up on.”
I might have lost the chance to know the woman who gave birth to me, but I wasn’t alone. I had family I’d never known about, stories I’d never heard, and connections I’d never imagined.
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