Treading Water

 Honestly, I was not let down too much by not finding my sister. There was a peace in knowing that she was real.  I'd chosen that road as a means of connecting to my birth mother. I look back relieved that I did not find my birth mother in that way. I am now beginning to understand the impact that my search has had on the lives of others. I knew that others were affected, but my own personal hunger and longing left me a bit numb to their feelings. I could only feel my soul-aching hunger pangs. They were loud pangs. They were the starving kind. A being starved for the nourishment of knowing and belonging. A leaf disconnected from it's branch on the tree. Something in the depth of my soul was seemingly insatiable.
  I was trying to keep up with a dogged search (It was made tireless due to my own single-mindedness) while trying to maintain a healthy home, work, and family life. I was trying to maintain a healthy me. I'd promised myself and my husband that I would not lose sight of the precious family that I already had. And, that I would not lose sight of me. Sometimes I struggled with my promise, but I never let it loose. There were days that I was just an exhausted shell of myself. I'd fight relentlessly to pull myself into the blessed moment of the present. I had to come up for air from time to time, because the whole thing would threaten to drown me. It's threats were actually promises that I did not want to take a chance on. I was happy to surrender to periodic rest.
 When I wasn't resting from my search, I was strolling avenues of possibility. I was thankful to have other search pathways in which to travel. During this time in May, my visit with my cousin Diane was getting closer, and my research was wearing me down a bit . And then, a new wave rolled in. A new wave of strength, a new wave of information, a new wave of possibility, a new wave of hope.   My cousin Precious and I had been trying to figure out our relation to one another. We messaged each other at odd hours as I am on the East coast and she is on the West coast. This search had me keeping late and insane hours any way (or rather, I was keeping my search going until late and insane hours). We searched around her family tree for answers. It felt like chasing "whascally wabbits". Nothing was concrete, and we were running down holes that brought us back out to where we started. She and I discussed her speaking with some of her other relatives (aunts, uncles, grandmother, and cousins) in order to see if anyone knew anything. We decided that she would offer some of my general information without giving my name. On May 12, 2016, one of her cousins stepped forward with a hunch that he was my father. My heart hit the floor...