“I always knew I was adopted. I didn’t look like my life parents or brother: it was peas in a pod… and I looked like I was photobombing the family photo! Although some issues growing up about where I was from, I knew I belonged with my parents. My life mother sewed our family together so well and lovingly; it was a happy and stable home.
Then, in the 1980s, everything changed. Attachment theory research showed the wounds that closed adoption could cause, and as a result, the adoption law changed, allowing contact between the child and the biological parents. Before then, neither side was able to make contact. But a baby in the womb, especially in the last few months, has already made contact and has had an experience with her mother, and she waits; I waited, expecting to meet my mother. A bond exists before birth, and when that bond is broken, there is a wound. I have nothing against adoption; children should be in loving families who can care for them, but there is still a wound from the separation, a sense of being ‘abandonable’. I think I unconsciously carried it very my life.
In the late 1980s, my biological mother (Robin) sent me a letter requesting contact. I was unprepared to receive it. It felt too risky – why would I risk losing the mother I had for the one who left me? So I wrote a polite letter to thank you, but to shut down any idea of ​​contact. I then went on with my life as normal…except now, and then I would drive down the street where she lived (she had put her address in the letter), looking for people who resembled me. But besides that, I haven’t done anything about it for 25 years.
Then two things happened: I had my children, and later, my mother died. My mind went back to my birth mother and the letter I had written when I was 23. I decided I wanted to write a ‘better letter’. So in 2014, when I was 49, I hooked up. We first met, mediated by a social worker, and via email and text. There was an immediate connection. It was amazing and scary – it felt like something big had been unlocked.
There were many discoveries, but perhaps the greatest was that Robin was a Christian, a full-blown, hands-in-the-air Pentecostal who kept talking about God as a person. I had had a nominal Anglican upbringing, but no one ever spoke that way or said you could have a personal relationship with God. I thought she was crazy, and I was worried that her belief in an imaginary friend would ruin our reunion.
So I decided to prove to her that God was not real. If I could straighten her out, our relationship would be okay. I began to research the historical facts of Christianity and came to the Resurrection, the epicenter I see now of the faith. I realized, reluctantly at first, that it was true. Jesus not only existed and was crucified but also returned to life. If that was true, the rest of the Bible must be true too, and God was real, and He loved me. I started reading the Gospel of John, and three weeks later, I came to the end of myself and gave in. I said, ‘God, you’re true. I’m yours.’ The first thing I did was tell Robin I was wrong! She was very friendly – and excited.
I can now see God’s wonderful work for both of us, reconciling me first with my birth mother and then with himself. Very few adoption reunions succeed, with unforgiveness being a key factor in their failure. I believe the difference between us was God: He made it possible for me to forgive Robin for leaving me.
Having felt ‘derelict’ all my life, I now know I have an anchor to my soul and will never be abandoned again.”
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you; he will never forsake you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Susannah’s story is part of Eternity’s Faith Stories series, curated by Naomi Reed. Click here for more faith stories.
