Today I’m sitting with myself and my memories of this day nine years ago. I’m choosing to be present with my feelings, the painful ones and the joyful ones.

This is the anniversary of the day I received registered mail from the Custodian of Adoption Information. It contained a letter with the legal name, address, phone number, and email of the now adult child I placed for adoption what seems like a lifetime ago.

This letter invokes a mixture of emotions and feelings that I continue to wrestle with.

I cried today. I still feel the grief, pain and regret of losing my baby, and not seeing my son grow up. And I feel happiness for having him back in our family now, and deep gratitude for our restored relationships.

This letter delivered a dose of reality that completely upended a secret part of my life. For nearly 25 years I had lived on the premise that a devastatingly painful event that was central to my life never occurred. This secrecy had created an extreme form of denial, where the pain of loss and grief were unbearable, so I buried them. I unknowingly buried my true self and my true identity as well.

I will never fully be able to comprehend how the thoughts of shame and fear could be so intense as to make me walk away from my own baby, a life-altering decision that is definitely the biggest regret, and biggest mistake of my life.

I didn’t know what it would feel like to live without my child, and that we would inevitably become strangers. I never considered what it would feel like for my husband, nor did I consider how it would feel for our children to be separated from each other. This decision hurt them, and permanently fractured our family tree.

Thankfully, over the past nine years we’ve created lots of wonderful memories together. We gladly celebrate our family reunion anniversary each year. And I’ve experienced God’s goodness and blessings in all of it.

I’ve heard it said that life is both deeply broken and deeply beautiful. Perhaps both are necessary for a meaningful life.

I think I’m finally learning how to accept and embrace the brokenness and the beauty; the suffering and the happiness; the heartbreak and the healing.

I’m grateful for the day the secrecy was broken.