7.5 on the family scale.

                                         freshie me, first few days home. 1974

Until 2022, I'd had 48 years of knowing someone gave birth to me somewhere, not quite understanding the gravity of that situation, and loving her anyway. 

48 years of vitriol in the forms of: "but she gave you up," "you must not have been wanted," or "what kind of person has a kid and gives it away?" 

Third grade, the note passed in class that said "That's why her mom gave her away- she didn't love her..."

48 years of "Do you have any medical history of x, y, or z? No, I have no idea, I'm adopted..."

Then, praise God, in 2022, I found her. 

My OG mama.

She loves me - always has...

And, she has a story. She has a perspective vastly different from mine or from anyone else's - anyone who's been through adoption or anyone who hasn't.

                     May 1974 May 2022

Until 2022, she'd had 48 years of knowing she had hidden a pregnancy, at 15 years old, from friends and from her family of prominence and position in rural, small town, Bible-belt NC, in 1974. 

She'd had 48 years of remembering being shuffled to a different county when it was time for delivery, far from the curiosity and judgment of southern, pretentious DAR upper-class women who would never. 

Not my child.

Image first. 

Status above all else.

She'd had 48 years of keeping something so unbelievably heart-wrenching and giant from her sisters. They never knew. 

She'd had 48 years of the trauma - the inexplicable agony - of never holding her child after having incubated her for nine months and, with legs not yet closed, blood and tears spilling, scars to remain forever - having to surrender the child to adoption that was decided for her. Too young to sign for herself.

She went back to school a few days later, no one the wiser. She had learned far harder lessons than any classroom could have prepared her for.

And so, for 48 years, she remained silent, heavy with the burden of weight few knew about and no one would help her carry. 

                                                                mama, circa 1975(?) 

I still don't know the entire account... 

                 8th grade, 1988B and Mama 2023

...there are multiple lives, diverse perspectives of the same event and its subsequent ripples.

Mama's, Curtis's, mine, all the people we love who have walked alongside us, then and now. Contributors, hand-holders, or tear-wipers. 

And, it's so incredibly different for each of us.

                                                               Curtis, circa 1975 (?)

My biological dad, Curtis, has lived the last 50 years without the knowledge of a daughter born in the mid-70s. He found out a few months ago when the daughter he didn't know existed found and reached out to his mom (my paternal grandma, Nancy) and had a few conversations with his sister (my aunt Jen, a retired special ed teacher). 

He did not have years to prepare. He did not know about the baby created in 1973 with his DNA, born in 1974, and whisked away from the teenage girl he also didn't know. He never had the chance to try to help, he was never told. 

The magnitude of shock that he - and they - must have felt upon finding out he missed 50 years with another daughter is beyond comprehension. Richter-level, foundation-crumbling. 

Incidentally, I googled 7.5 Richter scale, 7.5 being an absolutely random number that I consider pretty high for an earthquake- I don't know, really, but it was what I yanked out of thin air. The first result was Stan Kenton's "7.5 on the Richter Scale," a jazz album released in - oddly enough - 1973. 

Fifty years of life-  a lifetime of connection, milestones, and shared moments— the choice taken from him, for reasons that elude me, reasons known only to God and Mama. I feel no resentment, and I recognize her right to the choice she made to hold her experience close. It was her decision and hers alone, certainly, but I ache heavily with loss and sadness for Curtis and the "what could have been" of it. Time does not come with gift receipts.

Aunt Jen, me, Julie, 2025Aunt Jen & me, 2025

Can a life, a relationship, a connection...be created after such shattering, life-altering tremors? Can a father, his recently-discovered daughter, and the ancillary players in their families construct anything on an unstable, shifting foundation that survived something equal to a 7.5 earthquake? 'Tis the stuff of which movies are made, isn't it?

Well, movies or Stan Kenton's jazz album...

Their story- our story- will reveal itself to me, though, as God ordains. He knows when we're ready.   

                               . 

-selah