Reflections and Revelations

By Kathleen Shea Kirstein
The telephone cord is so short that I feel trapped in a 3-foot space. I can’t pace, which is what I want to be doing—anything to dispel this adrenaline circulating through my body. I am on hold with the Passport Office to find out why my passport did not arrive in the same envelope as my husband's. We had applied for our passports several months before, after winning a trip to Cancun. My husband's was a renewal, and mine would be my first-ever passport. I was thrilled, but now I stand here on hold listening to the crappy elevator music..

Finally, a voice on the other end of the phone said, “Your birth certificate was filed fourteen months after your birth. You did not send documentation to explain the delay in filing your birth certificate. We require this documentation to proceed.” She discussed that a packet of information would arrive in two weeks.

I barely choked out the words, “Ok, thank you.”

I called my mother. Hoping she would have the answer to this question. We were very close and talked at least once a week.


“It must be a clerical error, I‘m sure it will be fine,” she said and hung up on me.

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