Decisions Made

“Life is what we make it,
always has been,
always will be.”
Grandma Moses

The email elicited an immediate response.  The woman whose name was Barbara sent details of her birth date and her adoptive parents.  She knew that she had been born to an unmarried mother and thought that was in a home caring for pregnant girls.  But she didn’t know exactly where this home was.  She also attached several photographs one of her as a toddler in the arms of a man with a woman looking on with a loving smile.  A really happy family snapshot.  Another showed her as a teenager and the third showed her as a young woman in her early twenties, with a serious look in her eye.  Sandy could see no resemblance to herself but then as she had no idea who the father of this child was maybe the resemblance was more towards him.

She printed out the email and hurried round to share the news with Cathy at the Resource Centre.  Cathy was delighted to see her and to know how swiftly Barbara had responded.  They talked about how to proceed from here.  It was decided that Sandy and Cathy would meet Barbara at a local coffee shop rather than at Sandy’s house.  They thought it better to meet on neutral grounds in case things did not go well.  It was further decided that Sandy should go home, write an email suggesting they meet at the weekend in the coffee shop at the local mall.  After all she didn’t know where Barbara was living, if she worked through the week or even if she had some other responsibilities.  Really she knew so little about the girl.

So another email was sent setting a time and place and even though Sandy now had a photograph she was concerned she wouldn’t recognise the young woman.  A suggestion was made that she carry a certain magazine under her arm as she entered the cafe.  Very cloak and dagger; almost like a thriller.

Another email received accepting the arrangement and concluding with the sentence that she, Barbara, was looking forward to meeting Sandy on the following Saturday.  Sandy advised Cathy of the arrangement and then settled down with her thoughts of what she might have set in train.

If this person were her daughter then she would have to advise her son of her existence and some of her close friends would also need to know, but she could leave all that until she was convinced that Barbara was indeed her long lost daughter.

Saturday loomed large in her thoughts over the next few days – far off but also very  close.  Sandy wasn’t sure how she would feel when she met Barbara and how she would cope if it turned out that this was her daughter. And what if it wasn’t?  Would she have raked up her past for nothing.  But whatever came of it, she now had a new very real friend in Cathy.  A friend in whom she could confide.  She made another decision that whatever the outcome of Saturday’s meeting was, she would offer to volunteer at the Centre.  She had the time and the energy; surely Cathy could find something useful for her to do.

 

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