Amy,

Your response made me cry. Thank you fro sharing your story — yourself — so openly. I fully understand your ambivalence and pain at finding your name. It’s fucked up. Loved but given away. Humanized but erased. A double life. Who was that girl, who would she have become? All of that and more.

And yes, honoring where you are is the only thing you have to do. Reunion is beautiful brutality, one has to be ready for a life-altering journey. For me, no matter how painful, finding her dead was the easier outcome. I’m in reunion with my father, he is amazing, and it is still very very emotionally challenging. My adoptive mother’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy makes it much harder, makes me feel more split. I can only imagine how she would’ve been had Gloria been alive.

And your separation anxiety is what most of us feel. Science explains how babies brains and neurological systems respond to early separation from mother, even at birth when no post-natal bonding has occurred. It fucks us up, no matter how loved we are later. I wrote about it here https://medium.com/@mindystern/adoption-is-trauma-its-time-to-talk-about-it-ec675ba328cb

Thank you so much for your support of my work. So much love to you.

Mindy