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.
