Hi everyone. Hi. So the first time I met my biological mother it was at a rest
stop on the Garden State Parkway. It was 2013 I was 46. I've always known I was
adopted I've known I was adopted since I've known my name as Jim or Jimbo as I
was called as a kid, that's President Jimbo to you in case. I didn't know
anything about the circumstances because it was through Catholic Charities and so
it was a closed adoption the only story I knew was the story my mom would tell
on occasion about when she and my dad went to pick me up from the hospital. I
was 9 days old and she said a nun brought me into the room where they were
waiting and I was wearing an Irish hand knit sweater and a Saint Christopher
medal and St. Christopher's the patron saint of travelers and my mom asked the
nun where these came from and the nun teared up and my mom usually teared up
when she got to this point in the story and the nun said, "I can't tell you. I can
only tell you that they come from someone who loves him very much." This
would usually lead my mom to break down sobbing and you would think that this
would have made me curious, but it didn't actually. I was never that curious about
my birth parents, my parents had always said if you ever want to try to find
them we'll help you, but I never did. Part of that is that I had a wonderful
childhood. I had two parents who loved me, a sister who tolerated me most of the
time. I had friends we had a week at the Jersey Shore. I didn't feel like I was
missing anything. I wasn't resentful I was vaguely grateful I figured this must
have been a difficult thing to do. So fast-forward to about about six years ago,
I was out running with a friend who was trying to find his father and by this
point both of my parents had passed away and he said, "You should try to find
something out about your birth parents," and I said "you know I've never been that
curious and now I would feel slightly disloyal because both of my parents had
passed away," but he persisted and so to appease him I said, "Okay, I'll look into
it." So for the first time ever I sat down and I
Googled Catholic Charities and within an hour I discovered that Catholic
Charities would actually, now, they must have changed their policies would now
give non-identifying information, that is any information in their files about the
adoption except for last names, because they wouldn't allow you they wouldn't
give you the last name and then if you sent in a check, because this is the
Catholic Church after all, I say that as a Catholic. They would send you the
information. So I found out the Catholic Charities to which I was adopted I
called them and turns out yes this is true and yes they have my file. So within
an hour I thought I'm gonna find out something that I never knew. I always
thought I'd figured the story was two teenagers so part of the reason I wasn't
that curious is I thought I knew the story. So about a month later, I get a
three-page letter that's made from notes from the file and it was not at all what
I expected, it read like a 19th century novel about an Irish immigrant. It turns
out that my birth mother, Anne, grew up in Ireland part of a very large family, came
to the U.S. following her brother and lived and worked with a wealthy family
in New York City. The letter said that she did not want to give me up for
adoption and cried every time it was brought up, but that ultimately realized
she couldn't afford to keep me and certainly couldn't keep the job that she
had and keep me. I learned that she knit
during my during her pregnancy, which accounted for the sweater. I learned that
she stayed in the hospital with me all nine days and fed me all my meals and I
learned from the letters last line that she left the hospital brokenhearted.
I handed this letter to my wife, Katie, who read it and with tears coming down her
cheeks said, "You need to find her. You need to find her and let her know that
everything turned out okay," and I said, "I think you're right."
So, Catholic Charities will do a search for you, for an additional fee, so I planned to
call Catholic Charities but instead the next day I got a call from them. A woman
named Barb, I think that was her name, who called. She made up some excuse for
calling and she had a great New Jersey accent which I can't do justice to but
she said, "Jim, I got to tell you I've been doing this for 25 years and I
ain't never come across a story like this, it touched my heart, Jim. Jim, do you
hear what I'm telling you? It touched my heart, now I can't tell you to find her
because that costs more money and you know that cost more money but, Jim don't
you think she's wondering about you?" And I had never thought about that. And I
said, "I would like you to find her," and then we talked about how she'd probably move
back to Ireland we didn't know whether she should even be alive. So at this
point in this story I'm now interviewing for a job at Harvard. We had lived in
Charlottesville for 15 years and we were contemplating the possibility that we
would move from Charlottesville to Massachusetts and I would start a new
job and move all four of our kids, who were not that excited about moving. And
I'd spent a lot of time talking to Drew Faust, who was then the president of
Harvard, you saw her speak yesterday if you were at the inauguration and it
matters that Drew is female. So a Thursday night in June 2013, I get a call
a five o'clock from Drew Faust offering me the job.
So I'm now thinking we are moving and my head is spinning and I'm thinking about
how we're gonna move our entire family from a place that we loved. 9:00 a.m. the
next morning I pick up the phone it's Barb.
And she says, "Jim?" I said, "Yes?" She says, "Are you sitting down?" I said, "No." She says, "Jim, sit down."
She says, "We found her." And because I had been thinking so much about Drew Faust I
thought she was going to say, "Your mother's Drew Faust."
But she told me something equally surprising. It turns out that my mother
had married a wonderful man named Jack and had four additional children. Had
moved from New York to New Jersey and had lived most of my life 15 minutes
from where I grew up. And then she said, Barb said, "Jim, and you know what she told
me?" And I said, "No." She said, "She told me that she's prayed for you every day of
your life and that her only prayer was that someday you two would meet in
heaven." And then she said, "Jim, I can't tell you to call her, but you think you would
call her?" So I said, "Yes, I'll call her." So I called the next day and Jack, a truly
wonderful man, answered the phone and before he could say anything I blurted
something out like, "I'm not crazy! I don't need money!
I'm not emotionally needy, not really anyway!
I'm just calling because I wanted to say thanks and let you know that everything
turned out okay. I'm happy. I have a wonderful family." And I could hear Jack
smiling on the other end of the phone and he said, "Jim, she's been waiting a
long time for this and she's the most amazing person I've ever met." So then we
talked and it was both surreal and totally ordinary and we agreed to meet
when we would be driving from Charlottesville to
Massachusetts, hence meeting on the Garden State Parkway where, if you're
from New Jersey, that's the natural place to meet. So we're driving, this is the
morning that we are leaving our home in Charlottesville to go to Massachusetts
and our kids were only vaguely interested in this story at this point
because the much bigger story to them is that they're leaving their childhood
home and they also adored my mother, their grandmother, and weren't quite
sure what to make of this new person and I had seen Anne's picture so I was
prepared for this, but my kids hadn't and we walk into the rest stop and their mouths
drop open because there is no doubt that we're related. So we sat and talked for
two hours and Anne held my hand for most the two hours, showed me pictures, had
cards for each of our kids with their names on it and 20 dollars in each card.
"Ice cream money for the summer," she said. I eventually met my four siblings
and they completely welcomed me into their lives. I will tell you this is not
a bridge I ever expected to cross but it has enriched my life in so many ways and
it's one of the reasons I think building bridges is so important and this weekend,
we built yet another bridge between my extended family who are all here
and my birth family. Thank you.