And Then We Talked and Talked for Weeks ….

So I (Steve) have dragged out describing the process leading up until the day that Cathie and I finally met.  But I’ve done that for good reason.  Effectively, I had waited my entire life, and had honestly never imagined that this day would come.  I’ve previously shared my efforts to locate Cathie and the fact that there was nothing more than two sheets of paper, single-sided, double spaced text to hint at who my birth mother was.  (Reminder:  That information did say that my birth mother is pretty.  I’ll say it again … They got that right. 🙂 )

Once Wallace shared with Aunt Terry that he and I shared a “maternal haplogroup” connection in our DNA (that sounds really technical) … Aunt Terry figured things out.  Wallace’s concern at that point was pretty funny … “was he going to have to tell his Aunt Cathie?”  Terry took care of it.  Once Terry made the connection, then things accelerated very fast.   My email had gone to Wallace on Thursday.  His initial reply to me was on Friday afternoon.  By Saturday afternoon Wallace called me to say that “we know who you are.”  We setup a time to meet on Sunday for lunch.  Wallace and Karen along with Patty and me.  Wallace shared at that time that he’d bring information about my birth mom.  

Meeting with Wallace and Karen that Sunday was indescribable.  He is right in his description that we are very much alike.  I laughed when I read his post describing our first meeting because it is exactly the way I would have described it.  My experience was identical to his.  While on Saturday, Wallace had mentioned that Cathie (though at this point I did not know her name yet) was still processing the news, on Sunday he and Karen shared that they weren’t telling Cathie where we were meeting for lunch as she was excited to meet and might possibly crash the meeting.  🙂  [Her enthusiasm was very comforting and another one of those (small?) miracles I keep thinking about.]  I left lunch on that Sunday with pictures of Cathie and her phone number and assurance that she was waiting for my phone call when I was ready.

I got home that afternoon and sat out in my shop for hours before actually dialing the phone.  This was a phone call I had thought about making my entire life.  I called … Cathie answered … and she said she’d call me back…. No way!  Actually, it was good because I was so nervous at that point and Cathie was actually driving home so it gave us a chance to compose ourselves (myself 🙂 ).  When Cathie and I talked an hour later it was actually a short conversation.  Mostly about us meeting the next day at Wallace’s and Karen’s.  The most impactful thing for me from that first conversation was Cathie’s last statement as we were hanging up.  Cathie said to me “Steven, you are loved.  And you have always been loved.”  Honestly, at that point, I had already gotten more out of our relationship than I ever had hoped for.  I sat in the barn and cried.

On Monday, Patty and I traveled from Fenton to Eaton Rapids to meet at Wallace’s and Karen’s home.  Patty kept asking me on the way there whether I wanted her to drive.  Every couple minutes I had to wipe my eyes as they would tear up.  I had thought about this event my entire life.  Nobody that knows me personally (except for Patty) would think I’m a romantic but, the whole drive there I re-imagined a lifetime of imaginations of first meeting my birth mom.  Pretty poignant stuff.  Fortunately, I got all the tears out of the way before we got there.

As we pulled into the driveway and walked up to the door I thought my head was going to explode.  Karen (I think) opened the door and as we walked into the house Cathie was standing in the dining rooming looking toward the door.  I leaned to my left to be able to see her and I just broke into a smile. I recognized her immediately.  I’d never seen her before this but I knew her on sight.  She had my eyes (or actually I have her eyes.)  She laughed from across the room and the first thing she said was “Oh my, now that’s the face of a Miller boy!”  And then she gave me a big kiss.  The rest of that afternoon flew by.  We talked for hours.  Karen made us all a great lasagna dinner and we talked and talked.

After that Cathie and I talked and talked for weeks straight.  It was like we were making up for 50 plus years of absence.  I told her that Tuesday that I had only imagined that I’d meet my birth mother in heaven and that Monday had been a little like heaven.  I shared with her that I’d for years thought often of her while driving to the office in the morning and that I’d wish that I could talk with her or give her a hug.  And, that now my life had fundamentally changed … because now I could give her a call and actually stop by for a hug.  In looking back now at our text messages its pretty funny how much fun we had talking.  Cathie said that Bill helped her take screen shots (photos) of our texts and that the total number of pictures was (something like) a hundred or more??  Doesn’t surprise me.

We’re still talking a lot.  We met a week and a half ago down in Fort Lauderdale and I finally got to introduce Cathie (and Bill) to some of my friends.  I’m really excited for her to meet more of my friends and family this spring.  Things have settled down a little and we’re talking a little less frequently.  But, I’d like to think that the quality of our conversations is growing as we grow to know each other more (although they started off pretty darn good! 🙂 ).  There’s so much more to be said about these last four weeks.  I never imaged that this would happen and everyday I consider how lucky I am that it did.  I couldn’t be happier if I tried.

Steven