My Name is Hannah...

Hannah Lise Carey. I do not know if my name is spelled correctly. I have never actually seen it in writing. I only know how it sounds. Han-na Leese Care-ee. I do not have a mother. I do have a mom. Her name is Judy and oh-how-I-love-her. I love my mother, too, even though I do not have one. Ooooh...I have one. I just do not know her. But I want to. So much. Sometimes I ache for her. My ache led me to search for her many times, but my searches were futile. I dream that one day she will find me. Then my mom will not resent me for finding her. It won't be my fault. I want to know my biological mother, but I do not want to hurt my birth mom.

I'm going to be 45 this year. Isn't it time we meet? Isn't it time our lives make sense? Isn't it time the voids be filled? I know my mother feels a void. If I let one of my three treasures go, I would feel a deep, dark, emptiness; an incompleteness. Surely she must miss me. She named me. She baptized me. Mothers who plan to put their children up for adoption do not do this. Perhaps she meant to keep me and then realistically could not.

My mom told me my mother was a student close to getting her nurse's cap. My father (who I apparently inherited astigmatism from--thanks father o' mine) left before I was born. My mother wanted me to have a life better than the one she had--did not want to raise me as a single mother as her mother had her. I respect her decision. I am not mad. But sometimes, like tonight, when I am reminded of mortality, I am sad. She does not know she has three perfect, radiant, impressive grandchildren and she will never witness the indelible mark they will leave on this world. I want to so badly to share this experience with her. To see her smile of approval. I want her to see how hard I work to...just to. I want her to tell me my heart and my drive, and my passion, and my optimism, and my dreams (and my German-thighs, and my way-too-premature gray hair, and my hazel eyes), come from her and that all is good and will be good. Because sometimes I just need to know I'm a good person. It would be nice to know that someone truly understands me. I just want to be part of something REAL, like my children are a part of me.

I want them to know who they are because I do not want them to age like me: I am afraid I will never completely know who I am.

~Mama