My mother had me at 17 and gave me up, and when I found her years later, she told me to forget her—terrified her powerful husband would leave if he knew I existed. I walked away broken, believing I was unwanted, until a year later he appeared at my door with a box of letters she’d secretly written to me every birthday. She had loved me all along, just too afraid to reach out, and that night in a hospital room, the silence between us finally gave way to truth, tears, and reconciliation.
