My birth mother died and I don’t know how to feel about it
I was born in August 1971 to Dawna Snow and James Ross. He was not there because he chose to go to the bar.
Fast-forward eighteen months. Mom had left Dad and took me with her. I was happy and with my mother’s youngest sister Cindy — I was named after her — and my father showed up with a cop and his new girlfriend, and after a few not-so-nice words, took me to his mother’s and left me there. When I was six and a half years old, he remarried and I went to live with him and his new wife.
Fast-forward again to when I am ten. Stepmother wants to adopt me. My father says my biological mother couldn’t be found, so we went through with the adoption. When I was thirteen, my adopted mother and my father took me to a psychiatrist — never got a straight answer of why — and there my father told this elaborate fairy tale about how my bio mother had beat me, left me alone, was a drunk, etc. and how he had to rescue me. From that moment on, I was constantly reminded of how much my bio mother ‘hated me’ and how much of a b**** she was and I was just like her.
At the age of 43, I finally found my mother’s family thanks to Aunt Cindy being a photographer and having a page on FB. I have kept in touch with my Aunt, one of my three brothers, a few of my cousins, and another aunt and uncle over the last seven years and talked to my bio mother for about two years before she stopped talking to me.
Then, February 14, 2022, my brother Roger calls me to tell me that Mom had died of a heart attack the night before. I was shocked and stunned, as she had been in rehab after she had hip surgery in December. The doctors had said she was doing well, so we were all extremely shocked.
It’s been almost a month now and I still haven’t cried. Should I? I don’t know. Does it make sense to cry and grieve over a woman I never really knew? I have been so confused and unsure. I’ve sat and thought and thought but I just don’t know.
My final thoughts: I hope this helps others know they are not alone.
