She showed her greatest love and selflessness

The last memory I have of my birth mother alive was me literally screaming at her. She had been in jail for about five years and I had not seen nor spoken to her since she left my brother and I in a crack house alone. When I found out I was pregnant with my son I decided to take a chance and contact Niantic to get her information and write her. When I called the jail they informed me that my mom was very sick, she was able to be discharged from the jail but she had no one that they could release her to. I informed them that I was her daughter and they could release her to me, which they did. I was so excited that I was going to be able to share in such a special time of my life with my birth mother.

A week later my mother was released from prison. Days went by and I didn’t hear from her. A week went by and nothing. I called her phone, no answer. I called her friends, no answer. I left messages, no return call. Finally one evening I was at my grandfathers house waiting for her to come home and the phone rang. It was my mother. I completely lost it. I was so angry. I remember telling her that she didn’t deserve another opportunity to know me. I told her how selfish she was and how I couldn’t stand her. Then I hung up on her.

Later that week I went to my doctors appointment. As I left my appointment I remember feeling aware of where I was leaving. The hospital. It was the weirdest feeling. I brushed it off and got on the bus to head home. When I got home I checked the caller ID and realized that I had about 40 missed calls from my cousin. Just as I was about to call her back, the phone rang and it was her telling me to come outside. “For what?” I asked her. “Who died?”, I said jokingly. “Your mom” she replied. I honestly remember not having any thought at all. She told me we needed to go to the hospital but I refused so we drove to my grandfathers house. Planning the funeral is a blur to me. Thank God for my mothers siblings because they handled it all. “How do you plan a funeral for someone you don’t even know?”, I kept saying.

I passed out at the funeral. I just could not believe that the first and last time I would lay eyes on the women that gave birth to me since she came home from jail would be while she laid in a casket.

As the years went on, I really didn’t think about my mother, and when my thoughts wandered to that forbidden place in my mind, I would get so angry. How could she do this to me? How do you just give up your kids? How do you choose drugs over your family? How come she didn’t care enough to see me before she died? My life is a mess and it’s her fault. My son will never know his grandmother. Ugh, I used to give myself a headache with all my Why’s and How’s. I cried myself to sleep so many countless nights.

I was so busy blaming my mother for how my life turned out, that I never stopped to Thank my mother for how my life turned out.

In 2012 God began to work on me, from the inside out. I heard so many people talk about their purpose. I prayed that God would show me mine. What I didn’t anticipate was that my purpose was so deeply rooted in a decision that my mother made before I was even born. In order for my purpose to be realized my mother had to realize her purpose and her purpose was to give birth to a child that she would ultimately have to sacrifice for HIS purpose.

I spent so much time and energy making sure that I was not like her. I didn’t want to look like her, I didn’t want to talk like her, I didn’t want to make the choices she made, love the people she loved. I just did not want to be her. All that time I wasted trying not to be like her, that I couldn’t see how God had took all the best parts of her to create me.

Today I walk in my truth. I am a child that was given up for adoption. I have overcome all the odds stacked against me. I have the victory. My mother made the hardest decision of all and through that decision she showed her greatest love and selflessness because of that I am forever in debt to her.