Page 13 - MSN_346_AugustSeptember

AUGUST // SEPTEMBER 2018 • MONTANA SENIOR NEWS HOME & LIFESTYLE PAGE 13

My Name is Michelle, and I

Think I’m Your Daughter

Once the search began, it took just a few
weeks to identify both individuals.
As Mary continued reading the letter, she
came across two sentences that still warm her
heart: “Could we please get together? I would
love to meet you.”
“At that point, I just sat down on the couch
and started to cry, then I told my husband
about her. He was even more flabbergasted
than I was, because he didn’t know she
Mary (left) is reunited with her daughter, Michelle, whom existed,” said Mary, who vividly recollected
she gave up for adoption after giving birth when she was his eight-word response: “You what? Why
16. “Michelle was a gift when she was born. I gifted her didn’t you ever tell me?”
to adoptive parents,” she said. “Now I’ve been re-gifted to According to Mary, her husband, Jose, was
have her back in my life and to hear her call me ‘mom.’”
PHOTO COURTESY MARY. more shocked than judgmental.
“He was very accepting of the news,” she
said. His support for the two women to con-
BY GAIL JOKERST nect was immediate as evidenced by his next
question to Mary, “When can we meet her?”
Imagine receiving a letter that begins “It wasn’t anything that I ever expected
something like this: “Hi, my name is Michelle, to have resolved, so I never talked about it,”
and I think I’m your daughter.” explained Mary, who moved to a home for
If you’re a woman who has never given unwed mothers in Los Angeles when she
birth to a baby girl, you’d label this a case of became pregnant with Michelle at 16.
mistaken identity at best, a hoax at worst. But “I wasn’t old enough to care for myself,
if you did bear a child three decades ago that much less a baby,” she added. After giving
you gave up for adoption, the letter would birth, she turned the baby over to an adoption
probably elicit a much different response. agency and signed mandatory paperwork
And that is exactly what happened agreeing to never try to locate the child.
when Mary Sanchez, living in southern “I felt I had given up that right. Plus, I
California at the time, opened such a didn’t want to upset her or her adoptive par-
missive in January 1997. ents. Over the years, I often wondered what
“When I saw the name on the return had become of her, but never to the point
address, I thought the letter was from an where I’d remotely try to find her,” stated
old summer-camp friend that I’d lost touch Mary, who appreciated that Michelle made the
with. But as soon as I began reading, I initial contact by letter rather than by phone.
realized it wasn’t from her. I was flabber- “I think calling cold turkey would have
gasted,” remembered Mary. “It was two been hard on both of us,” she said. “When I
pages long and included a photo of a pretty was ready to reply, I didn’t trust myself to talk
woman with her husband and two children. on the phone, because I didn’t want to sound
Coincidentally, she had the same last name like a crybaby,” she admitted. Instead, Mary
as my friend. She also looked enough like wrote an email back, inviting Michelle and
her birth father to leave no doubt as to who her family to come to her home. Considering
she was.” Michelle lived less than 100 miles away, it was
Besides writing about her family, Michelle logistically simple to arrange.
related how she had hired an investigator Unsurprisingly, their initial meeting was
specializing in family searches to find her one of the most memorable days of Mary’s life.
birth parents. Since Michelle’s father’s Her first thought upon seeing her daughter
name was on the legal adoption papers, and was how much she resembled her birth father.
men rarely alter their last name, he was
easier to locate than Mary, whose last name CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
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