It simply does not seem possible that we watched my first born, stubborn, big hearted, chunky monkey graduate from College this weekend. And on Mother’s Day Weekend and exactly four years to the date she graduated from High School.
We are so proud of our girl and what she has accomplished, and look forward to an even brighter future! With her BS in Kinesiology she’ll be applying to Grad Schools for Physical Therapy in the fall. In the meantime I get her back under my roof for a short while!!
I can’t say enough thanks to everyone who made the trip to Arkansas this weekend to celebrate her achievement. One amazing woman in particular. Fitting that this is Mother’s Day weekend as I share with you a fairy tale. Our very own.
50 years ago a young college girl found herself pregnant and unwed. Though in love with her beau, she knew she had to finish college. Without her college education and dreams of becoming a teacher she had no means of supporting a new baby. She was unsure her family would support her. And family is everything to her. Days after she delivered a tiny baby boy on December 15th 1968 in a St Louis hospital, she made the selfless, heart wrenching decision to give that baby boy a life she was not able to give him at that moment. She gave that baby boy up for adoption. She left the hospital without her son and with a heavy heart.
She asked the attorney what he knew of the family her baby boy would go to, and all he could tell her was they were a couple in Kansas City.
For many years only 3 people knew of the sacrifice this brave young woman made. Herself, the baby’s father and her best friend. That burden weighed heavy on her heart and he was never far from her mind.
Fast forward and this young woman graduates from college, marries the beau she was madly in love with and gives birth to a beautiful little girl and a few years later and handsome baby boy.
Life happens. And so does divorce. This once madly in love couple go their separate ways and take different life paths.
This Mother, teacher, sister, daughter, aunt, friend to many meets a charming man with a Dutch accent and a new love story begins. In a whirlwind romance, they marry and move as far away as the Netherlands and Michigan and then settle back near her small Missouri hometown in St. Charles.
That beautiful girl and handsome boy she had grew up and during their childhood always noticed a melancholy attitude from their Mom during the month of December. She was unable to keep the secret of giving up her baby boy, their brother, for adoption so many years prior, and shared with them they had a brother out there, somewhere.
Over the years she struggled with wanting to find him, wondering how he was and who he was and who he had become.
Wondering if he had a good life. She consulted a private investigator and had no luck. She had nothing to go by. A sealed adoption and no names. She worried if she had any right to look for him. She had given him up-what if he didn’t know he was adopted? Her heart was full and empty at the same time. A piece was missing. And before she knew it, it had been almost 50 years of not knowing and she had all but given up......
Flashback to December 1968 to a young, married, Baptist couple living in Kansas City, Missouri. A couple who longed for a baby. Tried for a baby with no luck. A faithful man in Seminary and his bride whose hearts yearned to share their love with a baby. Then a phone call came. The young man’s Mother was a Nurse.
In a hospital in St. Louis.
And by January of 1969 they had adopted a tiny little boy whose birth mother’s sacrifice and bravery gave them all they had ever hoped for.
That little boy was so loved. And doted over. And was never allowed to get dirty. And loved even more. And that couple was honest with him from the time he was able to comprehend what adoption was. That little boy was raised with love and Jesus in his heart. As he grew older he wondered about his birth parents. Never with any malice or anger. Just wonder of who he was and where he came from.
Fast forward through high school and college and a great life to a career with the Kansas City Police Department. Then marrying a young, single mother of one and having two incredible boys together.
His wife comes from a large, extended family and was more than a driving force in wanting her husband to answer those questions he had. But never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, his adoptive parents who provided him with a fabulous life, he didn’t pursue those questions for many years.
Cancer took this young man’s adopted Mother from him far too soon and he then became estranged from his adopted father and sister for many years after. Cut off from what was left of his family other than an Aunt and Uncle on his Dad’s side and Aunts and Uncles and cousins on Mother’s, he felt the time had come to find out more about his biological parents.
All adoption records in Missouri were sealed.
He petitioned to have his opened and was denied. He was actually informed no records existed of his birth. He had nothing to go by than being born in St. Louis and the hospital-which no longer existed.
But his wife is determined to a fault and had just the right person in her corner. Her step mom, who had taken up genealogy through Ancestry.com. She was fast becoming a pro at searching birth and death records and census reports and newspaper articles. She gifted her son-in-law with a DNA test submitting it through the Ancestry.com website one year for Christmas.
In February of 2016 a match was found. A man in Alabama with little social media presence but who was in and around the St Louis and Kansas City areas when this young man was born and adopted. He had a wife, son and daughter. It was a long shot, but an email was sent to this man’s son with an explanation of who he was and that he’d matched with his father as close as a first degree relative.
No answer. But they were not surprised-the email sounds like any of those crazy ones you get from foreign people willing pay you a million dollars to let them use your bank account....right....we’ve all seen those.
Then life happened and got busy and chaotic. And though the DNA match was often checked, and the social media presence of the people’s names they had were followed, not much could be gleaned from the information they had.
Then in 2017 it was decided that Missouri adoption records be unsealed. It required a form and signature and a $15 fee and upon January 1, 2018, all records could be accessed. However, if a bio parent chose not to have their names released they too could pay and have them redacted.
The form and fee from this man were received in Jefferson City, MO on January 4th. The anticipation was palpable. The excitement unimaginable. Until May 2018 came and a call to the state said they were so backlogged with adoption record release requests that they were months behind. It was May and they were just now working on the requests postmarked in January. A little let down, but still faithful this couple just kept waiting. A fun summer with their kids in Texas and an adult trip to Florida with friends and their minds were far from the adoption records. Until going through stacks of mail upon arriving home from vacation and there it was. The birth certificate had come....
“My Mom’s name is Rita” Brian said to me as I was perusing my own stacks of mail.
“What?” Dumbfounded. Thinking, no, your Mom’s name is Bev...
Wait. I froze. It hit me like a freight train.
“She’s the SISTER!! Your mom is the SISTER of the man your DNA matched with!”
I think we were both a little shell shocked as we began our social media searches and soon found Rita Sago VanStraalen.
Brian’s birth Mother.
The young college student who kept her pregnancy hidden from her family and friends and gave that baby boy to a couple who could give him a life she couldn’t right then.
We soon figured out from social media who his birth father was, Preston Mills and that he had 2 biological siblings. A sister, Amy Mills Smith and a brother Kellen Mills. God love when social media works for the good of something! The resemblance was uncanny between all of them! There was absolutely no denying Brian and Kellen were brothers.
But where do we go from here? Would Rita even welcome Brian contacting her? Does she care? Does her current husband know? Would lives be ruined?
Can Brian handle rejection if they want nothing to do with him?
Our hearts were overjoyed and cautiously optimistic at the same time. My heart couldn’t bear to see Brian hurt if they shunned him. I was scared and worried and anxious for him.
Being a cop and having been a detective, within 2 days he had an email address for Rita and he took a shot and sent her an email.
“.....I was born in St Louis in December 15, 1968 and given up for adoption. I recently acquired my birth certificate and it lists you as my biological Mother........”
When Brian text me her response I couldn’t get past the first line before I had to excuse myself from my patient on my CT Scanner to read the rest with tears streaming down my face.
“My dearest Brian,
I have waited almost 50 years for this day.....”
It was surreal. A dream. A fairy tale.
She wanted to meet. Sooner than later.
She and her husband Kees were leaving to visit the Netherlands within the next week and going to be gone for several weeks.
We set a date to meet for lunch in Columbia, MO the following Sunday. And then the phone calls and emails and texts and messages began. It was a whirlwind of emotions. My husband grinned from ear to ear every day. We were all up late every night for the next few days talking and learning about Brian’s new family. Being that Rita had shared with Amy and Kellen about Brian years prior, their knowledge of him made this family mesh even quicker.
My heart melted when Kellen told me he always felt a piece of his heart was missing until we found them.
A phone call to Brian’s bio father revealed he was remarried and that Brian also had a half-sister Taylor! Talk about bonus family!
It was a crazy week and we found ourselves sharing our amazing story every chance we got. With family and friends, with co-workers and even with complete strangers.
Somehow our story managed to work its way into almost every situation that week! My face hurt from laughing and crying and being up late. I felt like I was studying for a test trying to memorize all Brian’s newfound family members and who belonged to who.
And if you’ve followed my social media for the last 8 months you’ve seen firsthand how this has all played out. From the first meeting with Rita and Kees and Kellen, Susy and their kids to Amy and Daniel and their boys making a trip to KC. From a weekend spent with ‘new’ family that felt completely comfortable from the start to a whole new set of holiday traditions we got to be a part of for the first time. From phone calls and texts and visits and hugs to having Brian’s Mother at his daughter’s college graduation... she said more than once this weekend that if someone told her this time last year she would be spending it with us, she would have never believed it. And that on Mother’s Day she would get to hug and hold that baby boy she courageously gave to a loving family 50 1/2 years earlier.
We are looking forward to so many more years with our new family and making some damn amazing new memories. And thankful for God’s hand in the timing of all of this.
A week after we met his family, I was diagnosed with a recurrence of my previous breast cancer and He knew Brian needed some support. God knew and He brought them together. And we couldn’t be more happy.
So see, dreams do come true.
And fairy tales exist.
And this one is ours.
