Todays Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

To Have and To Hold

By Thring

In the summer of 1959, I flew from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles

accompanied by my father. Nineteen years old, pregnant and frightened, I

was

flying to this distant city to live with total strangers, so that my unborn

child could be born far away from prying eyes and gossiping mouths and then

be

put up for private adoption.

On September 3rd, I gave birth to a little boy and though I saw him

only

once, lying in the nursery, I was not allowed to hold him. The doctor and

nurses felt it would be too painful for me, and I suppose they were right.

Shortly after birth, I flew back to Washington, signed the adoption papers

and,

as my doctor had suggested, continued with my life.

Although the pain of the parting diminished with time, I never forgot

for a

moment that I had a son. Every September 3rd for the next thirty-three

years, I

silently mourned, grieving for the child I had given away. Mother's Day was

always the worst. It seemed that every woman I knew was a mom. I'm a

mother,

too, I wanted to say but couldn't.

And so the years passed and turned into decades, and the memory of my

only

child lingered just beneath my conscious mind, ready to explode at a

moment's

notice.

Then on March 26, 1993, I received this message on my answering

machine,

" , " a woman's voice said, " I have some news which I hope will be of

interest to you and bring you great joy and happiness. "

Her voice broke, and it was quite evident she was crying. " If you are

the

same Thring who did me a favor thirty-three years ago, please call

me

in Newport Beach, California. I would very much like to have a chat with

you. "

I called back immediately and was connected to an answering machine.

Three

days later, when I finally got through, the woman said her name was Susie.

She

thanked me profusely for calling and asked if I knew who she was.

" I believe so, " I replied, " but I'm not 100 percent sure. "

" Oh, , " she said, " I adopted your beautiful baby boy

thirty-three

years ago, and I'm just calling to tell you what a wonderful son you have.

Bill

is married to a terrific girl, and you have two absolutely beautiful little

granddaughters. "

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had fantasized about this

very

moment in some form or another for years, and now it was a reality. I told

her

that I couldn't think of another woman I knew with such generosity of

spirit.

Susie said that one day while watching her two little granddaughters

playing,

she thought to herself, " What woman wouldn't want to know about such

beautiful

children? " and so she began to search for me.

She told me that although Bill knew generally that she was looking for

me,

he had no knowledge of this most recent attempt to locate me, since there

was

always the possibility that I might not want to see him.

Soon after, I sent Bill a letter. In it I wrote: 'Oh, what joy ? what

pure, absolute, sheer joy, to discover after all these years that you are

here,

on the same earth, under the same blue heaven and stars and moon at night as

I ?

and that you, my darling boy, want to know me as much as I yearn to know,

hold

and love you. , it is important for me that you know I never, ever

forgot

you or ceased loving you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for

wanting

to know me and not giving up on me. Your loving mother, .'

In the middle of April I flew to Los Angeles. On the way, I wrote

thirty-

three birthday cards to my son with a short description of what I had done

for

each year of his life. Bill needs, I thought, to learn about me, too.

DeAnn, Bill's wife, videotaped me coming down the ramp at the airport.

With her were my granddaughters, and standing just behind her was a very

tall,

blond, impeccably dressed man.

When he saw me, Bill stepped from behind his wife and walked toward me

with

arms open wide. Into this circle of love I stepped, feeling just like every

other mother in the world holding her baby for the first time.