The Child Nobody Wanted Became the Man Who Refused to Let Anyone Die Feeling Unloved
PART 2 OF 5
The Mother I Found Gave Me the Answer That Broke My Heart
By Jeffrey Badders
There are moments in life when you spend years searching for answers, believing that finding them might finally bring peace to your heart.
For me, one of those moments came when I met my biological mother in Lincoln, Nebraska.
I had spent so much of my childhood moving through foster care, trying to understand where I belonged and why my life had taken the path it had.
Now I was finally going to meet the woman who had given birth to me.
We met at Danny's diner in Lincoln.
When I saw her, she hugged me.
But something inside me felt strange. Here was my biological mother, the woman who had brought me into this world, yet she felt like a stranger.
I was standing in front of someone connected to my very existence, but we had not shared the years, the memories, or the experiences that usually create a bond between a mother and her child.
During our conversation, I learned that she had worked at Stover's Candy for thirty years and was getting ready to retire.
But there was something much more important that I needed to understand.
Why hadn't she wanted me?
And then came the words that would stay with me.
She told me:
“I really didn't want any more kids.”
She also told me that I reminded her of her youngest child.
And then she said something that answered a question I had carried for so long:
“I just didn't want you, and I had you.”
Imagine spending years wondering why you were unwanted, only to sit across from your own biological mother and hear those words.
I had finally received an answer.
But it wasn't the answer that a child searching for his mother's love would hope to hear.
I couldn't go back and change my childhood. I couldn't erase the years in foster care or the experiences that had shaped my life.
And I couldn't make someone love me simply because I wanted that love.
When our meeting ended, I hugged my mother goodbye.
I walked out of that diner.
I never saw her again.
Later, I returned to something that had helped me throughout my life.
I began writing in my journal.
I reflected on what it meant to love myself, even when I had not received the love I had spent so many years searching for.
My faith in God remained part of that journey.
I had spent my childhood trying to navigate through darkness to find the light and love in God.
Meeting my biological mother had given me an answer about my beginning, but it did not have to determine the rest of my life.
I still had a life to live.
I still had choices to make.
And my story was far from over.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Part 3 of 5 — Coming Next
INSPIRING HEARTS 4 EVER
Inspiring • Encouraging • Empowering • Enlightening