A Love Letter to my Birth Mom

Faithlove lettersLove Letters to the WorldmotherhoodPersonal Growthtough stuff

Mar 30

Written By

GRACE SHAFFER

I saw a picture the other day of an Asian woman waiting for the arrival of a son that she had given up for adoption thirty years ago. Anxiety creeped all the way up to her eyes, and her cheeks sagged. The years had carved a person who could be identified only by her grief.

I couldn’t help but wonder if my own birth mom ever sat on a stoop somewhere in Guangzhou, China. Was she also waiting for answers that would never come? I wondered if her memories were still stuck on replay or if her heart remained stuck on a moment as twenty-five years slipped mercilessly by.

I’ve been writing this letter to my birth mom in bits and pieces throughout the years—words trailing when inspiration flows like a staggering stream. I’ll admit, the words feel like mismatched puzzle pieces without a reference picture. How do I convey the assurance I ache to give a woman I’ll probably never meet?

So my writer’s mind imagines the details, tying up the loose knots of my story, and filling in the gaps where the feelings are safe and the light is allowed to stream in. Here is where I would break the twenty years of silence, anxiety, and regret. Here’s what I would say, if I came face-to-face with the woman I’ve never met yet owe my entire existence to, the woman who birthed me into the world:

Dear mum,

I would like to think if you were here, you’d look me in the eye, and my smile would resolve the years that felt like one unsolvable question. Our meeting would be the defining moment you realize I have nothing but love and pride to return to you.

I hope if I ever met you, you’d be proud of me. I would probably stare in bewilderment as unrecognizable language would fill the silence of twenty-five years. I know that the sun has probably tanned out any porcelain skin you passed on to me, and my voice is ten times lower than it would have been if I had learned our native tongue. But even then, I hope that we would have the same shape eyes and the same hands and the same laugh.

But more than the physical traits, I hope to inherit the incomprehensible strength you’ve shown to me without a spoken word. I hope to cultivate your ability to give up everything for someone, no matter how heart-wrenching, without a second thought. I hope I can someday learn the language of sacrificial love as beautifully as you wrote it onto my life when you gave me up.

You gave me up, and Lord only knows how devastating that was, but I never for a moment thought you ever gave up on me.

And isn’t that the greatest gift we can give to others: the hands-down reassurance that they are worthy of a love big enough, wide enough, daring enough to let them go?

I like to think that you passed on a big secret to life without leaving a trace. From you, I’ve learned that lives are simply made up of choices that chisel the direction of our futures. Just as our choices can either become love ballads or badges of shame, we have the choice to look at ourselves as the victim of circumstances or the undeserving victor of grace. And I think we are just pieces of choices and moments of letting go.

For me, I see where adoption could have scripted labels of rejection and abandonment for me to carry throughout my life. I only see where grace stepped in instead. It’s the story that propels me to live worthy of the love exchanged and unspoken sacrifices made.

Because here’s the secret to adoption: no matter the pain of separation, no matter the winding road to recovering an identity, at the end of the day, I know my story begins with someone’s love that boasts of being bigger and deeper and wider than I could ever comprehend.

Our sacrifices have the power to act like sweeping love-letters, reminding others they are worthy of a life that should be lived fully, fully. Through you, I’ve learned the greatest gift we can give people is the assurance that they are worthy of deep-seated love and a whole lot of grace.

And I will always love you for that.

Love,

Your daughter whose life is shaped by grace