This morning, I heard the sobbing voice of my sister, tell me that my biological mother had passed away.

This morning, I read a text from a cousin that my mother had been put on hospice, and that since she is my mom, I should know.

It is a sad thing, that it took me 3-4 phone calls to people I do not know, to find out if my biological mother had passed away, to find out from strangers, that she had died in her sleep this morning.

I don’t really know what to think. Shock. Anger. Rejection. A lifetime of rejection. I was told that she was in stage 5 cancer. I was told that she made up the whole cancer story. I was told she was sick. I was told she was just fine. This morning, I was told that she made up the ‘not being sick’ part because she didn’t want people to know that she was ill.

I don’t think people should use Facebook to let people know when someone dies.

My body is reacting. Rushing heart beat, tears, shaky voice. But my brain? Not so sad. And I feel bad, that I don’t feel bad.

It’s been a lifetime of lies, rejection, and a short phone call every 4-5 years. We have so many cousins, and each one tells a different story of this person who gave birth to me.

Hubby says, when his father dies, he’ll probably be going through all of the good times they had together and the last 10 years that have been lost. With this news, I have no good memories to go over, save for one summer of visiting her when I was stationed in Seattle. Trips to her apartment, but never actually leaving her apartment together as mom and daughter.

I was neglected by my birth mother as a infant, I have clips of horrible memories, until I was picked up one day around 5 years old and given to my grandmother. My dad’s mom. My picture perfect childhood and life was born that day. Thanks to being taken in by my Dad’s wife, my mom,  a woman who would have inspired June Cleaver, I had an amazing childhood filled with all of the things the American Dream says we should enjoy in childhood. I had a dad and a mom my whole life, and married a man who has the most amazing mama, who took me under her wing. It’s like I won the Mom lottery.

Just not the biological mother lottery.

I think, there was always this thought, that through grouping with the Pavao side on Facebook, that they’d get to know me. The real me, and want to get to know me in person. That we’d work out our transportation woes and finally drive up to Seattle and visit the family up there. There would be time and money all on the same week. Always time, or money. Or transportation. But seldom all in the same week.

But now. In a phone call and a FB post – it’s over.  This very large biological family will be gathering, and I am left unwanted. Un spoken. Un needed.

My first thought, very first thought, when holding Nathan, seconds old, the first thought that passed through my mind, not how beautiful, but How? How could someone give away this child? How did my mother live a moment without me? It gave me grief and hope. Hope in thinking that she might think of me more often than I thought. She sent me a birthday note one year, (out of 43) that said that she wanted me to know that sometimes she thinks of me. I never knew what to think of her phrasing. She thinks of me sometimes.

As my throat tightens, and I swallow hard, and my emotional reaction takes over outside of my control – I am both sad and hopeful that this is a page turned over in time. No more longing for a relationship that will not be. No more wondering if they will drive down the coast and stop by. No more wondering if she will ever call on my birthday. (never in 43 years). No more. And today – a hole that I thought would be filled over in her passing, seems to be deeper.

And I wait the final healing – No matter how perfect a childhood can be, or how amazing the women are that God puts in a girl’s life – there will always be a mystical longing for an attachment to a birth mother. The finality of knowing that will never happen – that loss is great.