This has everything that a great story should have: humble beginnings, violence, tragedy, love, loss, the inexorable passing of time (which is often in itself a tragedy), greatness achieved despite it all and ultimately just about the most perfect resolution I can imagine.
I don’t know any of these people, but I can’t help but be happy for all of them. 
Thanks, SB! Beautiful story. Sniff…
Wow. Nice!
I read that yesterday on MSN and thought about posting the link. I think the part that got me was when the grandson was looking for, he assumed, the obituary for his grandmother, and found she was alive, in her late 90’s.
Darn. There’s something in my eye. . .
I really liked this story, too. What a wonderful gift for a woman who made the ultimate sacrifice, to find out that her choice laid the foundation for three generations of success. An astronaut to count among your grandchildren? Her friends are never gonna hear the end of THAT! 
On the other hand, I wonder how it feels to find out my father was a rapist. Or my grandfather, for that matter.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t mean to threadshit here, and hope I’m not. But I saw this story on Yahoo! News and chose not to read it. Because my gut reaction, as a person who was put up for adoption because I was illegitimate (and later blamed for it! :smack:) and was adopted by a woman who could tame the Hounds of Hell…my gut reaction was, “Why, I’d knock her right off her walker.”
I got enough of the story thru other sources to know she was raped etc. etc. Still not the baby’s fault. When a child is sent away from a biological protector that person has no idea how that child is going to be treated. From the sounds of it this story turned out well. Would that they all did.
How sad that you feel so bitter. I don’t know if you know the details of your own background and can say with certainty that your mother could have/should have kept you, given her own circumstances at the time of the pregnancy. But even if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were “unfairly” put up for adoption, you have no right to assume that every woman who gives her child up is doing so selfishly. For many women over the centuries, giving up a child was an act of love, desperation, or something that was forced on them. You have no right to judge those mothers, many of whom have suffered for decades wondering what happened to the children they never knew.
The mother in the story wanted to keep the child, but her parents would not allow it. She was an uneducated farm girl with no options.
I’m adopted myself, and the circumstances of my adoption are such that a case could be made that my bio mother “should have” kept me. I never knew her, since I didn’t learn the history of my bio family until after she died. But I do know the story in reasonably lurid detail, and I have never for a moment blamed her for what she did. I was not in her shoes. She did what she had to do to survive, and to care for her other three children.
The kind of mother who “deserves” blame for giving up a child is the kind of person who shouldn’t be a mother anyway. So it’s not like it everything would be wonderful if only you shared mitochondrial DNA with your primary female caretaker. Life’s not that simple.
I read this story in my local newspaper (LA Times) and it made me tear up.
How wonderful for the daughter, also, to research her origins in her older years and find that her bio mom was still around!
I surrendered my daughter when I was 16yrs old.
She found me when she was 28.
She is so accomplished I cannot brag on her, or you’d all know who she is. She is everything I ever dreamed for her and more. I attended her wedding, along with her parents and family and friends.
She has since had a son, my grandson. Life could not get more awesome, truly.
I remember reading once that for a woman, separated from her child at birth, “… her spirit is doubled, and then halved, and can never be whole again.” It rang true for me, you can see, I never forgot it.
Please do not presume to tell me what I should assume. I was my biological mother’s middle child and the only one she put up for adoption. (Married when she had my older half-brother. Played around, had me and gave me up. Married again when she had my half-sister who, when my mother “found” me chose not to meet me because I was an embarrassment to the family.
Sounds like your story turned out good. I’m glad for you.
I had to fight to survive. I’m not bitter. I’m a realist. I try not to get caught up with “what should be” but just deal with “what is.”
Facts are facts. My biological mother got rid of an embarrassing reminder. In doing so, she threw me into the jaws of hell.
In our second (last) meeting my “mother” asked, all in one breath, “Did you have a good childhood I prayed that you did.”
Because she was dying of cancer I couldn’t choke out the tears stored since adolesence. I didn’t say anything. A half-beat later she was talking about something else.
I hold the memory of meeting her close, like the one and only photograph I might have of a significant event. But the thing that makes me shaky-proud is that, when we hugged, I let go first.
I think it is inappropriate to continue this discussion here, as it would only be hijacking something that was meant to be happy. I apologize for my part in creating this unfortunate discussion. If you want to create another thread, I’ll participate in it.
Back on topic: the story posted by the OP is very sweet, and it’s nice to think how well it turned out.
I think Becky’s perspective is more than appropriate to the thread. My question would be, does it say more about the decision of the Mother, or about the responsibility of the adoption agency or government office that oversaw/approved the adoptive parents?
Becky - I’m glad you are free of those people, and have control over your life now. FWIW I’m here to tell you that life with your bio-parents can also be hell. I often wondered why mine didn’t give me up to a family that wanted a litle girl, as they so obviously didn’t.
Thanks TruCelt! Sometimes I post and later wonder why I can’t just keep my mouth shut. But I guess like everybody else I only click on the threads that “speak” to me, and I have to speak back.
And I’m really sorry that you experienced pain in the care of your “real” parents. I used to pretend that I was meant for another life.
Well said, CairoCarol!
I think the biggest point is, if a child is given away by a mother who “should have” kept it, that mother still had a very good reason for it. Children raised of parents who simply don’t want their kids often suffer very horrible neglect or abuse, and end up with horrid esteem issues (“if my mom doesn’t want me, I must be unlovable!”). Obviously it’s always a crapshoot if the adoptive parents will be good or bad. But a mother who is “merely unwilling” and gives up her kid is nearly *absolutely *doing the right thing.
Becky2844, you cannot assume you would have had a better life with your biological mother. If she’d raised you, she may have projected a shitload of insecurities and unhappiness onto you. You just have no idea. Even for different children of the exact same parents, life is not necessarily equally good for them all.
I mean, if you’d been adopted by better parents, you wouldn’t even *be *this resentful toward your bio-mom. It has nothing to do with her giving you away, and everything to do with the people your adoptive parents happened to be. Place blame where it belongs–on them, not on your bio-mom.
Anyway, it sounds like you’re viewing your hypothetical non-adoption life with very rosy, grass-is-greener glasses. That alternate reality makes a nice scapegoat when your adopted parents made your life shitty. But there are plenty of people who weren’t adopted who have shitty parents, too. You’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got either way.
/shrug