A Daughter’s Story
Written By: Elizabeth Christenson
TO LOVE WILL BE AN
AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE
In many ways, this journey started out with
my Mother. My “real” Mother, Florence.
The one who kissed my skinned knees.
She’s the same one who read those words
from Barrie’s Peter Pan, “to love will be an
awfully big adventure.” Of course, in the
same book, it is also said “to die will be
an awfully big adventure,” but maybe the
way you live your life depends upon which
quote you give more weight. Unfortunately, the woman who read me those passages
crossed over and started that big adventure
when I was eleven.
But that’s another story.
In preparation for this story, Freya
asked me, “what has it meant for
you to find Barbara?”
Off-guard, I answered “Genetics.
Roots. Medical history.”
These answers understandably
left Freya cold and she called me
on it. “That’s very clinical. There
must have been something else.
Something more compelling.
Spiritual. Inspirational. Love.”
These few words sent me spiraling into a week of tailspin
and frazzled soul-searching.
What does it mean for any adopted child to find their biological
mother? Is my experience universal? How could “natural-born
children” ever relate?
It’s been fourteen years, two kids
and one divorce since I stood in
the lobby of the Alta Mira Hotel
in Sausalito California waiting
knock-kneed to meet my
biological mother for the first
time. My then-husband Eric and
I had stopped off at my sister
Rebecca’s home nearby to bot