unnamed female infant m

there are no words. i can try to describe how i feel upon reading the name of my biological mother, but i really don't know what this feels like yet. i'm excited and glad for sure, but it is going to take me a couple of days at least just to digest this knowledge.

i am certainly glad that in the last week & a half i chose not to worry too much about what i'd do once i had her name. i knew that i couldn't prepare for how overwhelming yet incredible it feels just to see her name, her age, her place of birth.

but at the same time i was so fixated on getting her name that i didn't think about what i'd feel like when i saw my name on the original birth certificate: unnamed female infant m___, born at 5:21 am.

i wonder if she had thought about a name. how long we were face to face.

oh there's so many thoughts to think. i'm just going to let my brain think 'em for the next couple of days. not rush any decisions.

but i do have a next step that's nice & easy: i just write to alabama whozawatzit and can get background info,which is basically health information, like the presence of diabetes, heart disease or cancer in my parents and grandparents. i used to have that kind of information, my mom gave it to me when i was 13 - but just to look at. and she told me she had more information that she'd give me when i was older. i never got the "more information"and the documents i looked at when i was young have yet to turn up in the rest of my mother's belongings.

i'd hoped to find it in her safety deposit box, but it wasn't there when my lawyer finally got the legal authority to open it. my mom did not have a will, so alongside this new information about my birth, this possible path to a new beginning, i'm getting calls from my lawyer in birmingham about developments in the months-long process of settling her estate.

one process is just beginning, not governed by any plan or expected outcome, buoyed by the hope granted to me by the three words i read today, c__ l___ m___ . my biological mother. her NAME! holy smokes.

unlimited potential, wide open future.

the other steadily marches toward the anticipated goal. this process has an end, a goal that upon reaching i - and my mom - can rest. when i can say "that's finished and i'm glad." when i can concentrate on memories, not loss. when i can celebrate the life she lived, not tidy up what she left behind.

resolution, remembering.