<\/p>\n
A woman stopped me at the Walmart deli counter and stared at me for ten seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look exactly like someone I used to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled awkwardly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
She swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA girl named Catherine. She died in 1987 in a car accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Catherine,\u201d I whispered. \u201cAnd I was adopted in 1987.\u201d<\/p>\n
She dropped her basket.<\/p>\n
Then she grabbed my arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your birthday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMarch 14.\u201d<\/p>\n
She covered her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was hers.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn’t breathe.<\/p>\n
I told her I’d been adopted through a private agency. My adoptive parents had paid $12,000, and the agency had closed in 1991.<\/p>\n
The woman stared at me as though she were looking at a ghost.<\/p>\n
Then she reached into her purse.<\/p>\n
She pulled out a faded photograph.<\/p>\n
A young woman was sitting in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby.<\/p>\n
I stared at the baby.<\/p>\n
There was a small, dark birthmark just below her left shoulder.<\/p>\n
The exact same birthmark I’d had my entire life.<\/p>\n
My hands began shaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is that?\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n
The woman looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer name was Catherine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at the young woman in the photograph.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at the woman standing in front of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Margaret.\u201d<\/p>\n
She took a shaky breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was your mother’s younger sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
My knees almost gave out.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy\u2026 aunt?\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother didn’t die in that car accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
I froze.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Margaret looked around the crowded store before continuing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe woman who died in that accident was your mother’s friend. Catherine was listed as the passenger because someone wanted everyone to believe she was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn’t speak.<\/p>\n
Margaret told me that my biological mother had been seventeen when she became pregnant.<\/p>\n
Her parents had been furious.<\/p>\n
They wanted the baby placed for adoption immediately.<\/p>\n
But Catherine refused.<\/p>\n
She wanted to keep me.<\/p>\n
Then, a few months after I was born, Catherine disappeared.<\/p>\n
Margaret had searched for her for years.<\/p>\n
She eventually learned that a private adoption agency had arranged for a baby girl to be adopted by another family.<\/p>\n
But there was something wrong.<\/p>\n
The agency’s records listed Catherine as deceased.<\/p>\n
Margaret had never believed it.<\/p>\n
She had kept the photograph because it was the last picture she had of her sister with her baby.<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn’t you find me?\u201d<\/p>\n
She started crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried.\u201d<\/p>\n
She explained that the adoption records had been sealed, and the agency had closed before she could get answers.<\/p>\n
She had spent decades believing she would never see either of us again.<\/p>\n
Then she saw me at Walmart.<\/p>\n
The resemblance was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
But I still had one question.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf my mother was alive\u2026 where is she?\u201d<\/p>\n
Margaret reached into her purse again.<\/p>\n
This time, she pulled out a small envelope.<\/p>\n
Inside was an old letter.<\/p>\n
The handwriting was faded.<\/p>\n
It was addressed to me.<\/p>\n
Catherine.<\/strong><\/p>\n I opened it with trembling hands.<\/p>\n My biological mother had written the letter in 1987.<\/p>\n She said she hadn’t abandoned me.<\/p>\n She had been told that my adoptive parents would give me a safe and loving home.<\/p>\n She had been promised that one day, when I was old enough, I could learn the truth.<\/p>\n Then the letter revealed something heartbreaking.<\/p>\n She had spent years trying to locate me.<\/p>\n But every request for information had been rejected.<\/p>\n At the bottom of the letter was an address.<\/p>\n Margaret looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s alive.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at her.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout forty minutes from here.\u201d<\/p>\n The next morning, Margaret drove me there.<\/p>\n I sat in the passenger seat holding the photograph against my chest.<\/p>\n When we arrived, I stood outside a small blue house.<\/p>\n My hands were shaking.<\/p>\n Margaret knocked.<\/p>\n An elderly woman opened the door.<\/p>\n She looked at me.<\/p>\n She stopped breathing.<\/p>\n Her hand flew to her mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cCatherine?\u201d<\/p>\n I couldn’t answer.<\/p>\n She stepped forward.<\/p>\n Then she touched my face.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n I started crying.<\/p>\n \u201cSo do you.\u201d<\/p>\n She pulled me into her arms.<\/p>\n For the first time in my life, I understood why I had always felt that something was missing.<\/p>\n It wasn’t that I didn’t love my adoptive parents.<\/p>\n I did.<\/p>\n They were my parents.<\/p>\n But there had always been a question inside me.<\/p>\n Where did I come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n Now I finally had the answer.<\/p>\n My biological mother hadn’t forgotten me.<\/p>\n She had spent thirty-nine years wondering whether I was safe.<\/p>\n We sat together for hours.<\/p>\n She told me about the life she had built.<\/p>\n I told her about mine.<\/p>\n We cried over the years we had lost.<\/p>\n But we didn’t try to pretend those years could be recovered.<\/p>\n Instead, we started with the one thing we still had.<\/p>\n Time.<\/strong><\/p>\n And it all began with a stranger stopping me at a Walmart deli counter.<\/p>\n A stranger who looked at my face and recognized someone the world had told her was dead.<\/p>\n The woman in that faded photograph wasn’t just someone from my past.<\/p>\n She was my mother.<\/strong><\/p>\n And after thirty-nine years, she finally got to hold her daughter again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Woman at the Walmart Deli Counter A woman stopped me at the Walmart deli counter and stared at me for ten seconds. \u201cYou look exactly like someone I … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23467,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23466\/revisions\/23467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}