Chapter 28

Meeting My Mom

    I quickly drove to Westminster and stopped to buy another street map of that area. Teri street was a tiny little street that was very difficult to find. As I approached the house I became very nervous - I was literally shaking. All that I could think of was that after all of this, what if she doesn’t want to talk to me or even see me?

     I parked across the street and I was pretty sure I now had the right house. The garage door was open and inside was a Cadillac with personalized license plates, ELIZA JD  (Elizabeth, Juris Doctorus,   a lawyer). At that point I got a bad case of cold feet. I was overwhelmed with the thought that she might not want to see me, so I decided to call her. Even if she said that she didn’t want to see me,  I knew that she would have to come out sometime to close the garage door, so if I waited I could at least see her.

    I called directory assistance and got her phone number and I did confirm the address this time with the operator. I dialed the number and it rang and rang and   . . . finally the answering machine picked up the phone. I hung up. I hadn’t come this far to talk to a machine!  I swallowed the big lump in my throat and picked up my little case that I had all my adoption papers, Christmas cards and such. I got out of the car, locked it and walked across the street to the front door. As I approached the front door I imagined that the whole neighborhood was watching.

    The front door was open and in front of it was a very heavy screen door. There was some opera music playing,  so I got up enough courage and rang the front door bell . . . and no one answered. I rang it again and still no answer. I banged on the screen door and immediately there was the sounds of dogs barking. Two cocker spaniels came barking up to the front door and kept barking and barking.
A voice behind me asked very sharply, "Can I help you?" I turned and could see no one. Who ever it was was in the garage.

     I took a step toward the garage and said, "I’m looking for Elizabeth Stewart."
This lady stepped out of the garage and she was a mess. Heavy set wearing a mumu, she was soaking wet and her wet hair was hanging in her face.

    She said again very sharply, "Look, I’m pretty busy,  what do you want?"

    I was dumbstruck -  I could say nothing. I just opened up my case and handed her one of the Christmas cards that she had hand addressed to me so very long ago. I asked her, "Does this mean anything to you?"

   She looked at it for the longest time and when she looked up there were tears in her eyes. She said, "You’re not John?"

    With tears in my eyes I shook my head, Yes, and we fell into each other's arms. We stood and hugged there for the longest time and finally we composed ourselves and she invited me into the backyard. There I met my nephew, Sergio. He and his grandma, Elizabeth, had just had a water fight in the backyard. Apparently,  she had lost and was she embarrassed. It’s not every day that you meet you son for the first time and here you are soaking wet!

    It was an exciting time. Within about ten minutes time I found out that I had a brother and two sisters. My brother Karl has four children and I got the opportunity to meet two of them that evening. My older sister,  Leigh,  also came that evening and I got to meet her. She has one child who I didn’t meet for about a year. I met my younger sister Nicole in 1998,   although I did meet Sergio, her son,  that day.

    We got around to the topic of my birth and I found out that she had already had a child, my sister Leigh, and had gotten a divorce because of abuse. She had gone back to an old boyfriend and one thing led to another and she became pregnant with me. When the boyfriend found out that Elizabeth was pregnant he left her holding the bag (or kid,  in this case) and she felt she had no option but to put me up for adoption. [I can just about promise you that NO adopted child believes in abortion !]. Apparently she had tried to keep in touch with Walt and Jackie (my adoptive mom and dad) to keep tabs on me but Jackie wasn’t having any of that. That brings us to a curious event that took place.

    Sometime in the 70’s my mom tried to get in touch with me through Walt. Walt told her that I had gone to San Diego State University (I never did), graduated with honors and attended medical school there (fat chance I would ever graduate with honors), and that I had no desire whatsoever to ever meet her. In fact,  I could see skepticism on her face when I told her that I had been trying to find her. It took me showing her the letters that I had written to social services in California in the early 90’s before she believed me. The only thing that I can figure out was that Jackie made Walt promise to never let me know that Elizabeth had been writing and had been trying to find me. Nothing else makes any sense!

    About a month later Leigh and my mom visited us in Phoenix and they got to meet my family. Later on in the year we celebrated our first, and only, Thanksgiving together. We were able to share with and visit each other only for about 17 months. In January of 1996 my mom was diagnosed with a particularly rare ovarian cancer which took her life in November of that year. I am so grateful to God that I had the chance to know her and spend what little time she had left.