Finding Out

On the evening of August 29th, I logged into my Facebook account and there was a message waiting for me in my Inbox. It was from my older half-bro, A, on my birthmother’s side. On her side, I have him and my older half-sis, H. I am not friends with A on FB, but he was able to send me a message. I immediately just sensed something in my heart…I don’t know how or why, I just felt it.

The message said that he and his father (who is not my father, but is my half-sister’s father and my bmom’s husband) felt that I deserved to know that my birthmom, M, was found collapsed on the floor on the Thursday morning, before. They were unsure when she fell…whether it was Wednesday evening, or early Thursday morning…but they found her there, nonetheless. He said that she was not well and that he wasn’t sure she was long for this world. He left me his phone number and email address. I picked up the phone immediately and called him.

The conversation was actually nice. He explained that they (his father and him) had not shared with my half-sis that they had contacted me. (FYI, though we were best friends at one point in time, she really has a hate-on for me. Big time, which actually breaks my heart because I love her so much.) A told me that he was tired of the distance and wanted me in his life, I said, ‘And I want YOU in my life.’ He told me that, ‘Mom has three children and we need to stick together and have a fresh start.’ I told him that I wanted to go and see his mom…but that I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfy and he said to go down for a visit…and that he’d tell H when I was going to be there, so she could avoid me. I planned to go down the next day. He advised me that his mother wasn’t really recognizing anyone and wasn’t extremely responsive. He asked me to please email/text him after the visit and let him know how she was. I live about 90 minutes from the town where my bmom lives…and my brother, A, now lives in the city, too…and wouldn’t be going down the next day and wanted to get an update, so I agreed.

When we hung up, I felt good. Actually, I burst into tears…but the part of my heart that felt good was the part grateful for whatever led A to contact me and let me know that Marg was not well. I was grateful for 10 minutes of conversation where he was ‘my brother’. I was grateful to be remembered as ‘her daughter, too’. I was grateful for any tiny piece they threw to me that I could own as mine, too.

And then began, the rollercoaster ride…to saying goodbye to my birthmom. I just noticed that today’s date is the 29th.

The next day, Monday, I went into work for the morning, with the plan to take off at noon, to land in their town by 1:30pm. Around 9:30 in the morning, I received a text message from A saying, “Don’t go to visit Mom. Today isn’t a good day. Umm, the nurses kinda said that she kinda shouldn’t have visitors today. Uh, she just kinda should sleep.”

Ermmm…what?!

I immediately knew that though the text was coming from him, my sister likely flipped her lid the night before when he told her that I now knew that M was in the hospital, dying. I assumed she tore a strip off of him and he was panicking…after all, she is HIS sister before I am. Now he was trying to back up.

I quickly made the decision to completely ignore his text message and pretend like I never got it whatsoever.

My birthmom was dying. The woman that gave me life. The woman that I loved with every ounce of my heart, but yet couldn’t connect with on a super deep level, in life, for whatever reasons. And, those reasons didn’t mean anything. Not when my birthmom was dying. There were no reasons…when it really came down to it. All that was left, once the reasons were shoved away, was love.

So, I went to see her, that afternoon. Nothing could have kept me away.