Finding Mother

By Sherrill Elizondo 

I see myself as a young child, as though I'm viewing a scene in a movie about someone else. I walk into our living room and see a woman in a 1950s era full skirt. Hands on hips, my voice childlike and demanding, I ask, "Where's my mother?" She ignores me. I don't know if the woman was a mother or a babysitter. This happened over 70 years ago. The little girl and the woman in my mind's eye are fleeting memories. 

I've tried to retrieve memories from the ages of 3 to 5, but all I've to go by are photographs and what others have told me. A therapist told me my incomplete memories of early childhood are still held as feelings. I felt there were secrets in my family long before I comprehended what they were. Secrets I kept from my childhood boiled over as a teenager and simmered for years.  

At the age of 40, I began to learn about a mother who left three children in the care of others and why. I'd never been told of her existence, supposedly for my protection. Often, I’d felt like I was not a part of my family in some way. I never considered the possibility of adoption, though I felt something was being withheld from me.  

My younger brother and I’d joke, as we reached adulthood, that we must have been found in a basket. 

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