A Tribute to Ann: My Daughter's Mother

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“Her adoptive parents would be exalted as ‘selfless and generous,’ whereas I have been labeled as selfish and immoral. They would be heroes for adopting ‘outside of their race,’ while I was shunned — by both blacks and whites — for dating outside of mine. I believe then, as I do now, that keeping Ryanne would have brought shame on her innocent head. In her new family, she would always be the ‘chosen one.’ Had I kept her, she would have become the sad consequence of my bad choices. I could offer her only love. They would love her, too, and give her so much more.

For months I had held this constant thought: Ryanne would be the gift I would share with the world. Now, I was being called upon to live that truth; it was time to release her once and for all. I would share her with this stranger-mom, all the while holding a special place for her in my heart.”

Still, my daughter was never far from my mind. I married, birthed and raised two more children. From the routine meeting of my children’s daily needs to the elaborate birthday cakes I baked and the Halloween costumes I meticulously stitched, I pondered the woman…the other mother….who was caring for the child I left behind; the woman who filled the role for Ryanne that I was unable to fill.

When I found Ryanne I was relieved, but not surprised when I was warmly received by her mother, Ann. “I am so glad you called,” she had said the first time we spoke. I could tell she had been waiting for that moment for 23 years, the same as I.

Just three weeks ago, Ann’s big and beautiful heart gave out, and she passed on. When we spoke just a week earlier, and she told me, as she often had over the years, “I love you, Ruby. You are a member of our family.”

Ann gave Ryanne and and me permission to be a part of each other’s lives, without guilt or reservation. All adoptive family reunions do not foster such a positive outcome. One young man recently shared with me that he could not sustain an ongoing relationship with his birth mother, because she could not get beyond her jealousy of the relationship he has with the woman who raised him. A second young man is very excited to begin to know his mother, but is not allowed to discuss her with his adoptive parents, who are feeling a sense of rejection in his even wanting to know the woman who gave him birth.

I have had the privilege of talking one adoptive mom through her fears of abandonment as her daughter began a relationship with her birth mother. I was able to tell her that this first mother knows her place and recognizes the deep love shared by her daughter and the woman who raised her. I gave birth and the gift of life. Ann and her husband provided a home, a family, encouragement, acceptance, nurturing, laughter and love.

Ann was my dear friend. Over twenty-six years, we talked for hours on the phone. We exchanged letters and photos. We laughed and cried together. A year ago we were blessed with a great-granddaughter. Ann always made sure I saw the latest photos and heard the most recent antics of the most amazing child of all time—on this topic, we firmly agreed!

Ann was a woman of substance. She was one of a kind.

Ann, you are my hero. I will always be grateful to you beyond my ability to express it in mere words. It has been an honor and a privilege to know you. While mine is a debt that can never be repaid, I will always speak well of you, and I will honor you all of the days of my life, through my love for our daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter.

And, I will miss you.