A Yearning Soul

Thoughts rush into my soul,

My eyes become watery with tears.

I wonder if you were wed,

I wonder where you’ve been all these years.

Emotions rush into my soul,

My need to know grows strong.

In my heart, a hole.

Please, tell me what went wrong!

Why couldn’t you keep me?

Why did we have to part?

I wish that I could see

These past feelings of your heart.

I’m not angry at you for the choice you made

I was adopted by a great mom and dad.

My admiration for your choice will never fade,

but not knowing you leaves me sad.

Not knowing anything about you,

All these possibilities in my mind.

A search is something I may someday do

Maybe one day, my birth mom I will find.

I wrote this poem my sophomore year in college. I was 19 years old. It is interesting to look back at this poem now; I can answer every question I posed.

I used to sit at my desk in college and look up “Joans” from New Jersey. I joined Adoption.com’s reunion registry. I went through every birth relative that was searching too; birth relatives named Joan. I always had hope that I would come across a match to my birth mom. I would search for an hour or less, then go out with friends.

Searching did not consume my heart until I had my second child. Holding my son, I couldn’t wrap my head around how someone could give up their own child. Listening to my child cry, picking him up, and knowing he would stop crying because he sensed I was his mom…there wasn’t another feeling like it.

I share this moment because I am sure there are some adoptees out there that search occasionally, but in their minds they don’t understand how anyone could become obsessed with searching for people they have never met. I didn’t think I would become obsessed. I thought I would go through life as I always had–writing poetry about adoption around my birthday and my birth mom’s birthday, searching on the computer for brief periods of time. I never imagined I would go to the extent I did to find my roots.

It took a specific life changing event for me to make a decision that I would search until I found answers. I am not saying every adoptee will have an event that turns a switch inside them, and shuts them out from the rest of the world while they find their missing puzzle pieces. I am just telling people my story, and letting people know that as life can take unexpected twists and turns, so can searching for your past.