A Life of Words

Thirty-one years ago, on Dec. 20, 1992, this angel on Earth graduated to angel in heaven status when lung cancer took her much too soon at age 71.

Driving to North Dallas early Wednesday morning for a doctor’s appointment before work, my birth mother Betty and the anniversary of her passing 13 years before I found her other three children, my older full siblings, in 2005 made me misty. What really did it was the thoughts that took hold about how, after being adopted at birth in 1961, I had missed out on the opportunity to grow up as her son.

Sure, I had adoptive parents, but because of my mother Olga’s drinking and the angry abuser alcohol made her, mine was an extremely difficult childhood. I also know that an early life with Betty, who gave birth to me when she was months from turning 40 and raised three kids who are 17, 14 and six years older than me, would’ve been far from carefree.

After all, 12 years after divorcing my boozing birth father Bob (and conceiving me with him a little over a year later), she married another alcoholic who was 17 years younger than she. That was in 1971 when I was 10 years old in Houston with the family that adopted me. Betty spent most of the last two decades of her unfairly challenging life supporting that second husband and herself as a drugstore clerk in Huntington, West Virginia.

So while I’ll always wonder what my life would’ve been like if Betty had kept me, and deeply regret not having had the chance to meet and get to know her, I realize I must be content with the captivating mental images my sibs Crys, Robin and Terry, and other people I’ve spoken with who knew Betty, have painted for me with their memories, along with many photos like these. And with the assurance that we truly will meet someday.

Your four children all love and miss you very much, Betty.