Eileen Resta - Ill Wait For You

Untethered

Suddenly and for reasons unknown to her she is ripped from her foundation, adrift and looking for the place where she will fit in. She has all she needs for the moment but without a secure base she will not be able to grow from the illusion of normalcy and safety within the four warm, glowing walls to a life of freedom and expansion.

Her beginning seemed secure and filled with promise. A short lifetime of familiar sounds, sights, and smells into which she began to feel the comfort and security of what it is to be home.

But then a great turmoil began and she felt the shudder of pushing and pulling away from her place of belonging, the place where she fit in perfectly. How will she find that again?

Now she is adrift without the promise of a new perfect place. She is without a compass or anchor to guide or secure her. She is powerless to help herself and will have to trust others to find the way for her. When she finally lands she will have to adapt to new and foreign sounds, sights, and smells. It will be up to her to adjust to her new place in the world.

Will the new place be better? Or just different. There will be new and diverse landscapes to be explored, people to embrace, customs to learn and follow. Will the landscape be harsh or mild, the people and customs kind and welcoming or wary of this intruder.

As she floats over the changing vistas she wonders if she has a choice. In her realistic dreams, she hears voices and sees faces as she drifts along waiting to be noticed and secured. Then the sounds change and there is a new excitement in the voices as she becomes aware of everything slowing down. Drifting along with no purpose or end may be over.

As suddenly as she was unanchored and set loose, she is now facing a new attachment in an unknown land. Over time normalcy and safety will be hers along with the freedom to expand her place in the land and grow outward in a new world where she will once again possess the compass and anchor she was missing and feel the comfort and security of a warm and glowing environment where she will again fit in perfectly.

Hello, Mrs. Coyne?

I didnt recognize my maiden name because the caller pronounced it with an accent. The date was February 22, 2011. At that time, callers soliciting products or services had started coming in on my cell phone. So I said,

No, you must have the wrong number. As I was about to hang up, the caller said,

Wait, Mrs. Resta?

Yes, this is Mrs. Resta.

My name is Nadia. I am calling from the Centre Jeunesse in Sherbrooke, Canada.

I am the social worker who has been assigned to your case. I have your adoption files here with meI think I can find your mother and she has been looking for you!

All my life Ive known that I was adopted but I never intended to look for my birth mother. Here I was, 61 years of age, and over the last five years my curiosity and desire to find biological information, or even a reunion, kept gnawing at me.

In 2011, my husband Frank Claude (I and the family call him Claude) and I had been married for 40 years and had two children: Eric and Elise. Eric has one son, and Elise and her husband Mike have two sons and a daughter.

So on that day, February 22, 2011, I was off from work for President's week visiting my daughter Elise, my son-in-law Mike, their new daughter Evelyn who was born on February 1, and their sons Jackson and Owen. We were in her living room and she was in her rocking chair nursing Evelyn when my cell phone started ringing. Jackson and Owen were playing with their toy cars in the playroom.

As soon as I heard this I slowly floated to the floor; but as I did I asked her to hold on. In a higher than normal-pitched voice, I exclaimed to my daughter...

"Elise, they think they can find my mother and she has been looking for me!"

Elise and I just stared at each other in disbelief. Tears welled up in our eyes.

I could hardly breathe. I ran upstairs so I could concentrate on what Nadia was saying.

She told me that my birth mother had looked for me several times over the years--in 1949, 1951, 1957, 1986, and 2002. Nadia explained that she has phone numbers from 2002 that she will call to try to locate her. Also in my files was a letter that my birth mother had written long ago asking for help in finding her baby girl who she had to give up for adoption. She said her investigation will take time since the last number she has on file is nine years old. Besides having the phone numbers as leads, she would also get information from the medical card that every Canadian citizen must have.

Nadia shared that my birth mother was 20 years old when she gave birth to me so she would be 81 years old. There was the very real and sad possibility that she had passed away during the last nine years.

Id like to ask you some questions. Do you have time now? she asked.

Yes! I was happy to say.

She then interviewed me about my life. She asked me about my height, weight, hair and eye color, education, my parents, my husband, children, and work. When I told her my height, weight, hair, and eye color Nadia said,

It sounds as if you take after your birth mother because everything is the same except she is a few inches shorter.

This bit of information, revealing the looks of my birth mother, and Nadias comment gave me a feeling of contentment. Adoptees often wonder if they look like their biological mother, and I wondered also. I never expected to find out.

The American Adoption Congress in a study of American Adopted Adolescents found that:

72% of adoptees want to know why they were given up for adoption,

65% of adoptees want to meet their birth parents, and

94% of adoptees want to know which birth parent they look like.

When I started this search, I was looking for biological information. Now I was faced with the decision, should I actually pursue a reunion? It quickly became an easy decision for me after learning that she had looked for me. I often wished I could write to my birth mother to let her know that I was safe and happy and that I felt I understood her decision to place me in the orphanage. From when I was very young I would feel sad that I couldnt let her know. I never believed a mother could give up a child and not give it another thought. I would think of her on my birthday and hope she was happy.