I just watched a documentary called “Closure.” It’s about a black woman looking for her birth mother after being raised by a white couple. I highly recommend it. And it struck a deep chord. There is a great ongoing discussion called “advaita.” They wrestle with the question “Who am I?” And it gets rather bloodless and impersonal.

We all feel out of place in this world for one reason or another. We disguise our wounds well. We hide out, do drugs, become comfortable behind walls. We dress well, become self-educated and know how to snow people. All the while wondering “Who am I?”

Everyone has a story that is unfolding and ongoing. I started out life among a family and felt I belonged. But when I married everything changed. I moved to another state. Had a son and daughter and the daughter died. Three left in the family. The fourth one, the dead child, did not live in our American culture. We didn’t keep her alive.

So tonight I am watching this documentary about the black child searching for her birth family. It is a joyful story that ends well. But what about me? I have given up on the “Who am I?” question that advaitans love to kick around. I know I am a child of God. But something has been missing.

Through my writing I have learned to tell my story and have helped a few other people reunite with their missing roles. As mothers, usually. Mothers who have buried children. Mothers that feel different. We all feel different and at time we feel unheard, unwanted and unseen.

All I can say is that until we hear all these voices of abandonment we cannot heal them. So I say that my little girl, whose name was Laurie, has been buried under a mountain of denial. But I am coming home to life and love. Thanks to a few good people, I am learning that I can go on, can be loved and accepted. That is a hard thing for me to understand. I have felt so alone for so long. And everyone needs a soft place to fall.

These paragraphs are saying that we all have a story, a feeling of a need to reunite with ourselves. To know who we are and how much we are loved. I have to take the first step. I have to reach out to people. Try to be real. Try to be present with others who are also denying their struggles.

It all ends and begins with love. It’s the middle parts that are the most difficult. Let us bless the middle parts, the bloody messy battles that we fought and lost. The reunions that have yet to take place before we end our journey here on earth. We never know who will leave the play next.

Thank you all for reading what I write. I have put almost 14 years in online. I think I am getting better, both as a writer and as a human being. At least I hope so.

Vicki Woodyard