Hey girl, 

If you are just popping in, this is the second part of this journey. The FIRST POST can be found by clicking here.

24 years ago I closed a door I thought would stay closed. 

I will tell you, in all honesty, I thought very rarely about my decision. I didn’t consider the life on the other side of the door, I hardly considered what it meant for life on THIS side of the door.  I figured a door closed was a door sealed. And I moved forward. 

In a young and foolish way, I figured it would be just as easy to be forgotten as it was to forget. That the soul crushing declaration would provide some freedom to my mother. I reasoned that part of a life could be erased as easily as a failed game of Mario, never to be considered again. 

When I tell you that I seldom considered my mother after hanging up, I’m not lying. I wish I could tell you, mainly to tell her, that I cried when I hung up the phone that last time. That I missed her voice or her presence when I navigated life as a young woman. I am literally remiss that I boarded up the door so tightly that I didn’t even yearn for her guidance when, around the time when a girl becomes a young lady, my dad presented me with a “What’s Happening to my Body: For Girls” book. 

Other girls went shopping with their mothers, had their hair done by their mothers, not me. I was a rag-a-muffin of hand me down treasurers and Wal-Mart specials. My hair was a rats nest and always in a pony tail (that has yet to change). Any time I wanted to doll up a bit, my dad would kneel down with the nail brush that was dwarfed in his hands, and would paint my little pink fingers with care and precision. To be honest, he did a better job on the hand he “helped” with than I did on my own and I would tell people that the hack job of nail polish on my fingers was his best attempt. 

Even with the gaping absence of female role model, I managed to convince myself that this clean cut was the best situation.

I was so committed to this perspective that it felt more comfortable and “normal” to read about puberty in a well meaning gesture from my father who was in well over his head, than it did to wonder what it would be like to be able to ask my mother. 

Even when my father eventually found himself a wonderful woman, I wasn’t much interested in having or needing a mom. I was doing fine as a young girl raised by her father, it seemed redundant to add another parent to the mix. 

Honestly, I carried (and still do) that resentment with me for a while. This unyielding desire to prove that I was independent and OK without female influence. I STILL struggle with “jiving” with my step-mother (yes, I call mom but for the purposes of clearly identifying the roles we will use the term “step”), and my mother-in-law is no exception to that battle. 

Over the years, ever since the advent of Facebook, I’ve quickly searched my mother’s name wondering if she was one of “those” parents who jumped in when Facebook popped up. I had allowed myself moments of walking up to the preverbal door only to come up empty. 

Every search came up empty. 

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit of a relief to have no lead. To not have to make a decision. To just have no idea where this woman was. The door secure, closed, unfettering in it’s resolve to remain sealed. 

Good. 

And yet, as the years ticked on I started to allow myself to wonder “what if”.

Would I known my mother if I bumped into her while I was working in the city. 

Did she think of me as I hit benchmarks in my life. When I turned 13, when I would have started driving at 16, when I graduated high school or university. 

Did she wonder if I was dating? How did my husband proposed? 

Would she have wanted to see me try on wedding gowns or would she have advice when breast milk leaked all over the sample dresses because my son was only three months old and my over eager wedding shopping meant I had a dress that didn’t fit and not much time to find something that did. 

Would she care that she had one grandson, and then four? 

How would she have reacted if I poured out the hurt of my dating years? 

The what if’s are scary if you allow them in. 

And so, every time I would slip and search for her. Every sigh of relief yet subtle stab of regret, would be quickly boarded up. Another layer to the wall that shut out my mom 24 years go. 

And then the post that hinted my father to give me that tiny nugget of additional information. To show me back into the corridor I had stopped walking past. A dim light under the door that suggested a life I had all but forgotten. Enough to spark the curiosity of a child who wondered if her birthday passed without notice.

It’s weird feeling to be standing at the theoretical door handle of a door previously shut, ready and waiting to dust away the cob webs, to attempt to loosen the deadbolts, and to give the knob a twist. 

It’s even more unnerving when the person on the other side has no idea you are attempting re-entry. 

You know from my last post (check it out here if you’ve just jumped in now) that I searched, like a dog fo it’s bone, for SOMETHING to connect us. Having been given just a tiny bit more information about my mother, I decided to Google, to Facebook, to actually ALLOW myself a silent prayer looking for information. 

After years of quick name searches and failed attempts at just locating her, my efforts this time brought me to an article written into same year, not 8 months earlier. An article that flooded my childlike heart with emotion. 

Hope.

Hurt.

A level of understanding and compassion for the woman who, at 20 years old “ran away” from two children and a marriage. 

It was the first hit on my Google search when I decided, for the first time, to pair the three orphans names together.  A hit. A clue. Something that could possibly connect two lives. 

Without hesitation and with all the confidence afforded by the anonymous veil of the internet, I clicked and the page loaded. 

“That’s my mom.” 

There she was, MY MOM. 

And in an instant I was connected to a door I tough long sealed. The light was no longer peeking under the door but was emanating though cracks that were previously invisible the naked eye. Suddenly emotions I had done such a good job of burying, erupted like Mount Vesuvius, taking over the serene Pompeii facade I had done such a good job maintaining. I was overwhelmed. Shaking. 

I took in every word of the article over and over again. Suddenly greedy for this adventure. I wondered how she survived that as a child. I marvelled at the strength to continue, and I “got it” when I thought of how scary it was to be a young mom with no “mother” of her own. 

I read the article so many times in a span of an hour that I could almost recite it verbatim. I looked for clues to who she was, wha tshe was doing, how she had turned out. 

And then I found the link. 

The connection. 

And I sat at my desk in a rec room littered with toys with a choice to make. 

Would I continue the search. 

Would I pursue this woman who I had previously freed. 

Because we serve an amazing and gracious God of forgiveness and love, I did take the next step. And not only the next step, but I had this unwavering excitement to keep going, this feeling that I needed to take each step, that I not only reached out to the author of the article but I jumped over to the good old 411 and searched AGAIN. 

Just a name and a location. 

And there it was. 

No wondering if I would have to try two or three numbers before I got to her. No jumbled mess of new last names. 

Her name. Her phone number.

The door, identified. 

I had all the cards. I knew I had a number, I knew I had the author, I knew that I had been looking and had no longer come up empty handed. 

She knew nothing. 

It’s weird feeling to be standing at the theoretical door handle of a door previously shut, ready and waiting to dust away the cob webs, to attempt to loosen the deadbolts, and to give the knob a twist. 

It’s even more unnerving when the person on the other side has no idea you are attempting re-entry. 

If this were the 90’s, I would have had to pick up my phone, I would have heard the dial tone. Th looming sense that a call was going to be made. The dead air and yet living freedom to hang up in a moments notice. The drone beckoning you push a number if only to silence the noise. 

Back in the day, I would have heard each number pushed. The different sounds would fill the void as the courage and excitement of finding my mother slowly transformed into fear and uncertainty. 

I would literally listen to my resolve waiver. 

Instead, I punched the numbers in silently to my phone. The sound of my heart filling my ears, deafening as I hit the green phone button. I was acutely aware of every crack in the screen of my phone, in the sound of the phone ringing it’s connection. 

I couldn’t tell you where my children were as I embarked on this quest or how God so expertly orchestrated the silence in my home for what seemed like an eternity. 

The phone ringing all the while until a woman answered. 

This was it. 

This was the moment that all these searches led to. 

There she was, answering a call she had no idea was coming.

“Jacquie?”

Now, if you read my last post you know that is where I left you. 

Hanging, wondering. 

“Jacquie?”

I had found the number, dialed the number, held onto the phone even AFTER the obligatory three rings, and allowed a human to answer the phone. Not knowing what I would say or how I would say it. Wondering if words would even come to my mouth or if I would hang up, running away like some prepubescent girl running door to door in a game of Knick-Nicky-nine-doors. 

“Jacquie?”

The response came instantly and seemed to take forever. “No. I’m sorry, this isn’t her number.”

I was deflated. Defeated. 

I had mustered this amazing courage for nothing. 

And, before I could pick up even a piece of the broken, the women – in true Easterner form – offered up a new number. 

With as much composure as I could manage I said thank you and I hung up. 

And now, again, I had a decision to make. 

Would I try again? 

I didn’t have to. No one would know. I had done a good job up to this point of following a path that could only be paved by His grace. And wasn’t it good enough?

I could put this all behind me. 

Forget about it again. 

Try to convince myself that I could go back to not wondering, not asking the “what if’s”.           I tried to rationalize that maybe it was better that it was the wrong number. Who would seriously want the upheaval of being contacted by a door slammed shut?

A new set of what if’s flooded my mind.

What if she was happy to leave?

What if her new life was enough for her?

What if she didn’t want to hear from me?

What if she didn’t love me? 

Lies whispered by the enemy. Fears ringing in my ears of years of avoidance. Hurts bubbling in a web of wondering. 

And yet, the path lay ahead and the decision rested in my hands. 

And so again, the painstaking process of dialing eleven digits that exposed my very child’s heart. 

This time, armed with the knowledge that I FOR SURE had the right number, the rings seemed to last longer. The pause as the tone gathered it’s breath seemed more drawn out and dramatic. 

She answered. In a way I can hardly describe, I was brought back to that townhome subdivision. Playing in the underground car park and building a fort among the branches of a bush. Enjoying moments of a childhood that was only offered in convenient glimpses. Playing with a family I would only know for a summer. I heard her voice. Mom.

I may not have thought I would recognize her if I saw her. 

I may have thought that the repression of memories and feelings was fool proof after two and a half decades. 

But the moment her voice sounded on my phone I remembered. Mom. 

In the most awkward way you can imagine I said, “Jacquie?”

Again ^^ I had NOT thought this far ahead. 

“Does the name Cassandra mean anything to you.?”

I could hear it. The immediate recognition of a life left behind. 

To be sure, i tossed in my brothers name for good measure, this time through tears. 

I knew I had found her. She knew I had found her. And in a moments notice, after 24 years of silence, after a life forgotten and unknown, we were connected. 

She didn’t know I was coming, I didn’t know I was going, but the God who makes the path known had seen it all. 

The door sealed for so many years was now open, raw, exposed for the ugly mess that it was. The edges blistering as words unsaid rang heavy for the moment. 

The funny thing is, I didn’t want to ask any questions, I didn’t need for any answers, just wanted her to know I was there. I found her. I was ready – or not – for what was to come. 

And we cried. 

I tried to share where I was in a fraction of the time it took to get there. To explain how I loved being a mother. I wanted her to know that she had missed so much and yet was welcomed into it all. I wanted to hear her well and happy, to know that I wasn’t mad, to feel safe as I kicked in the door. 

I wanted to start over, immediately to take back the hurt 24 years ago.

October 2, 2018 I found my mom. I hacked away a door like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and I started something I never saw coming.