My mother once told me about the existence of my half-brother, Richard, who she was forced to give up through adoption at age seventeen. At twenty-three years old, to say I was shocked would be an understatement.
I remember her saying, “I think about him every day. I just want to know that he’s okay, that he’s alive,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“We can find him mom,” I replied.
She shook her head, “No we can’t. It was a private adoption.”
I insisted, “We’ll find him one day.”
I jotted down his birth name “Richard Scott” on a business card along with any other details I could gather and put it on my bedside table.
Just two or three years after that conversation, my sweet Mom, Lyn, was killed in a near head-on collision just feet from the driveway to our family’s cabin in the country. She was sixty-six years old.
Nine months later, I purchased a DNA kit during a Christmas holiday promotion to find out my ethnic background. However, I secretly hoped that Richard did the same and we could be connected.
The kit sat on my nightstand for a few weeks, waiting for the right moment when I had not had anything to eat or drink for half an hour, per the instructions.
Once using, activating and putting the kit in the mail, processing took several weeks. I checked the website regularly with no luck. Then one morning after five weeks, I was surprised by a message on the site from someone named John:
“Hi, my name is John and I was adopted, I just did this ancestry test. Since you came up as the closest family member, I was wondering if you would be willing to talk, I’ll give my number… I’m looking for my birth mother or parents. Or anyone I’m related to. Thanks.”
The message blindsided me, I did not even realize the results were in! Could this be the son my mom always wanted to meet?
I opened the link to his profile and upon seeing his photo, immediately began crying harder than I had since the accident.
“It’s him!” I thought, “I found him, mom!” I prayed as tears rolled down my cheeks.
He had her long, strawberry-blonde hair and kind eyes. I could barely contain my excitement! It was a powerful mix of emotions, a kind of joyous grieving. I composed myself because I was dying to hear his voice. I was very close to my mom so the possibility of regaining a small piece of her was the greatest gift imaginable.
I called him as soon as I could speak.
In a shaky voice I said, “Hey, John?” I thought to myself, “Is it really him?”
“This is Matt, was your birth name Richard?”
He replied, “Yes, I was born in Chicago. My mom’s name is Lyn.”
I shamelessly broke down in tears. “Oh my God, we thought we’d never find you!”
The sentiment was mutual but he was in shock and I sadly knew what he would ask next, “Is mom still alive?”
I paused. “I have some bad news, mom was killed in a car accident less than a year ago. I’m sorry.”
He responded, “Oh... I figured she might not be. I wish I would’ve been able to meet her.”
I told him how she told me about him with tears in her eyes, that she clearly loved him and missed him so much.
“She wanted to know you were okay and that you had a good life,” I said holding back tears.
“Oh, I did. She gave me to a good family.” I took a sigh of relief and replied, “She would be so happy to hear that.”
Incredibly, we did the test at the exact same time. The results came in within twelve hours of each other. Convinced that it was divinely ordained, we thanked God for reuniting us.
John and I have become very good friends since that day. He has a beautiful daughter, my niece Lori. Mom always wanted a grandchild, little did she know that she already had one. And just a few weeks before the one-year anniversary of her death, my brother and his wife brought a baby boy into the world. I believe she now knows her grandchildren through the eyes of God.
John has since moved to Texas and now lives in mom’s cabin in the country, just up the driveway from where she left us. The cabin and land that served as her oasis has been brought back to life by the son mom never thought we would find.