When I opened the message from Liz, it didn’t register at first who it was from. She immediately acknowledged that she was my birth mother and confessed that she had initiated a search of her own over the years but, similar to my experience, hit roadblocks since it was a closed adoption and records were […]
A Match, A Message, A Beginning – Part II Read More »
There was a wave of emotions when I received my DNA ancestry results. I was fascinated by discovering all the different parts of the world that made up who I am. Of course, that was not all the results revealed. The most emotional part was seeing the DNA results that matched with unknown relatives. In
A Match, A Message, A Beginning – Part I Read More »
At two days old, I was adopted through the Sacred Heart Catholic parish by a farmer and his wife from Wall. I was raised with a loving home by a family who always made it clear that I was theirs. From an early age, I knew I was adopted and understood it meant to be
Tracing My Beginning Read More »
Neither my parents nor my siblings had graduated from college. I distinctly remember their excitement about my being accepted into ASU at the end of high school. It was going to be my chance to be the only one from my immediate family to attend college. But as I mentioned in a previous post, lack
Just as I did with my studies, my husband and I had postponed trying to start our family when my mother’s diagnosis came to light. We both knew that time with her was fleeting, and it was important that we focused on her treatment and care. It was a year after my mother’s passing when
From Hope to Heartbeat Read More »
In 2005, my mother stopped smoking after 53 years. Four years later and months shy of her 70th birthday, my mother was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma—aka lung cancer. Because of the size of the mass and its location, post-surgery she was left with both of her upper lobes and a partially lower
When the Roles Reverse Read More »
If I could go back in time and give my eighteen-year-old self any advice, it would be to consider taking a gap year between high school graduation and starting college. As a new college student at Angelo State in 1993, I experienced a level of freedom I hadn’t had in high school, and my attendance
Pressing Pause on the Plan Read More »
