Being Found

As a child, I had been told my mother died in a car crash after i was born. . In 1982, I found out that my mother was not killed in a car crash after I was born. My search began. I soon found out that I was sold by a famous baby seller, Bessie Bernard.

I found several women who could have been my mother but none were. I kept hitting brick walls.

In 1987, I sued the State of NY based on my being sold. It took two years but my attorney, an adoptee friend of mine, won my case on appeal.

I got my Original Birth Certificate and eventually, the NYC health Dep’t acknowledged that the info on my OBC was fiction. There was no birth log for me that matched my OBC. My mother's name and my birth date and place of birth were fiction.

I hired the best searchers I knew of, the ones who could do magic tricks, but to no avail. Over the years I sent DNA swabs to several DNA companies, not for searching, as it never occurred to me that I could ever find anyone that way, or be found that way, but to get information on my heritage. The most concrete information I could get from any of them was that my mother was part Asian and that I was not Jewish. I never gave up in my heart but there nothing more I could do, search wise other than pray.

Early last year, on a whim, I bought a St. Jude (the Saint of lost causes) medal and hug it around my neck. I forgot about it. A few months later, I signed up with Ancestry.com to try once again to find additional heritage information. I was truly shocked when it came up with a match for a two cousins, Karen and Mel. It happens that Mel's favorite aunt was named Ruth, was the right age and living in New York when I was born. She lived a few miles across the river from me for most of my life until she died in 1987.) (My OBC says my mother's first name was Ruth but the last name was slightly different than Mel's aunt Ruth, and that’s the kind of lying that Bessie Bernard, who sold me, did when she sold babies.) When Mel and I spoke and on Saturday morning it was clear that Ruth had to be my mother :)

Mel drove hours to see me and we had dinner on Saturday evening and breakfast on Sunday morning. I have also spoken to cousins Karen and Linda and connected to even more via Facebook. Spending time with someone I am related to for the first time in my life was joyous. Hearing stories about my mother and grandmother and others was exciting beyond belief.

I have no doubt that my mother has been watching over me and that her doing that helped me survive the trauma of losing her.

I am very very sad about her not being here and will go to her graveside to visit her as soon as I can.

I am on cloud nine and feel connected to the earth in a way I never imagined possible.

Click on the picture to the left to see a ceremony to honour my mother Ruth Braverman, held at the site of the Lockerbie plane crash. My mother didn’t die in this crash but one of the natural mothers I know lost her son in that crash and this ceremony was arranged by Marion McMillan, a mum who is a dear friend of mine in Scotland, in our honour.