Two Mothers

Today, on the anniversary of Neil's birth, I'm thinking about a woman I have never met.  Twenty years ago, when most adoptions were closed with very little information exchanged between the families involved, she made the heart-wrenching decision to show her love for her son by giving him up to a life she felt would be better than the one she could offer him.  I will never be able to adequately thank her for her sacrifice.  There are no words that would suffice.  I think of her often, but on his birthday and Mother's Day my prayers for her are a little stronger and go a little bit deeper. 

Someday soon we will begin the search to find her, if she wants to be found.  We will go about it carefully and prayerfully.  But until that time, I keep a promise that she asked me to make in an unsigned letter she sent shortly after Neil came to us.  "Please tell him every day that you love him," she said.  Oh, I do!  I truly do!  And I love her too.