Susana

January 27
   I know it's the right thing to do.  I don't have a job; don't have money, don't have education; don't have oh so many things.  What I do have is a world of love for this little girl--for you, Sweetheart.  I don't get to give you a name--that is going to be your mommy's job--but just between you and me, I already have.  Your name is Susanna.  Even if nobody else in the world ever hears it, I want you to know.  Susanna, I hope you know how much I love you.  I only get these few minutes to talk to you and hold you and give you a lifetime worth of love, and I know that's not enough, but I hope you somehow understand that it's because I love you that I'm giving you up.  If I were selfish, I'd keep you with me and make you suffer through my mistakes.  But I'm not going to be selfish. I love you too much for that.  So just know, my precious Susanna, that my heart is always going to be broken because I want you to be strong.
                                                         Love,
                                                                Mommy

February 14
Can it really be that over a year has passed?  I thought about you all day today.  I hope that somehow you know that you have inspired me.  Because of you, I've gone back to school.  I'm going to be a teacher, Susanna.  I'm going to teach elementary school, I think.  I have a long way to go, but I'm hoping that I treat every student--boy or girl--as if it was you.  I think about you every day.  I wonder about your hair, your eyes, your family...did you get my curly hair or your daddy's straight hair?  Did your eyes stay blue like his, or did they turn green like mine--or even maybe brown like my father's?  Do you have brothers and sisters?  Do they hold you when you cry?  Do you ever miss me?  I hope not, Susanna.  I don't want to be the reason you feel bad.  I love you so much.  I hope somehow you know that.
                                                                    Love,
                                                                           Mommy
December 25
Susanna, I know that you're almost 10.  My goodness, how time flies!  Did you have a nice Christmas?  I stayed with your grandmother.  This is her first Christmas without your Grandpa.  Oh Susanna, I wish you could have known him.  He was a great man.  I will always remember him carrying me piggyback on his neck.  I felt so tall--like I could almost touch the sky!  He made me feel that way, anyway, Dear.  He was a good, good man and I really miss him.  He died of a heart attack, but before he died, we had time to talk.  He knew about you, Little One.  I didn't keep you a secret.  Both he and your grandmother knew that I was pregnant.  We all prayed and talked it through together.  Susanna, did I ever tell you that I wasn't a teenager?  I was an adult--20 years old.  Your daddy and I were in love and planning to get married, and we chose not to wait.  We chose together.  When I got pregnant, though, he got scared and left.  He knew that I wouldn't dream of abortion, and he didn't want to raise a child.  Not that I would have asked him.  I knew we weren't ready.  But this introduction to responsibility scared him and he left.  Grandma and Grandpa didn't pressure me in any way.  We prayed together and decided.  It was an easy decision for me--I've already told you that I wanted you to have the best home and the brightest future possible, and I knew that couldn't happen with me.  I think it was really hard for Grandma, though.  I heard her crying in her room, but she never tried to talk me out of it.  I'm thankful for that.  Before he died, your Grandpa told me that he knew I did the right thing.  He said that if I ever got to know you, though, he wanted me to tell you that he loves you.  He's always prayed for you--his granddaughter.

My little girl--I know I shouldn't say "mine", but I still feel you in my heart, just like I told you I would.  That's why I've written this journal.  Just in case, some strange way, we should ever find each other, I want you to know that I never, not even for one day, stopped thinking about you.

                                                                   Merry Christmas, my little angel,
                                                                                Your mommy, who loves you

July 28,
Susanna, school is starting up again soon.  I know that you will be a freshman this year.  Are you excited?  I wonder if you'll go out for sports, or maybe play in the band like I did.  Do you have a gift?  Mine was always music.  Even when life was hard, music always lifted me up.  Coming home, I always had on my I-pod.  Sometimes I would hear people laughing and realize that I'd been singing along again.

I've been teaching for quite a few years now.  Fifth grade, mostly.  I see so many little girls, and I wonder if that's how you look-or looked, you know what I mean.  Blonde and pretty, brown hair in pony tails, chubby redheads--all of them are you.  Not knowing what you look like, I know that any one of them could have been you.  It helps me remember to treat them all with love and compassion.  What if that little girl that I snickered about turned out to be my own daughter?  So even now I look for you in every face and treat every child (even the boys) as if they were my own.  Just another way you make me a better person, Susanna.
                                                                 Love,
                                                                          Mommy

March 18,
Dear Katie,
            Thank you for giving me the chance to see you.  I was scared about the idea of looking you up, but I always felt that there was a connection.  When I turned 18, I talked to my mom, and she gave me her blessing.  I wouldn't have done this so soon if she hadn't.  I didn't want to do anything that would hurt her.  You did give birth to me, but she gave me life.  She told me a little about the situation.  She told me that you were young, unmarried, and you wanted me to have the best.  She knew you from the letters that you had written to the adoption facility, and she was impressed by the love that you had for me.  She knew that it was hard for you to give me up, but that you were determined to do what was right for me.
           When we met, you said that it was like you were looking at yourself.  I'm with you! I think that the first thing that struck me was how alike we look.  Your mom (it seems funny to call her Grandma still, but I'll get used to it) says that I look just like pictures of you when you were 18.  I brought my photo album (and my phone) and she took hers out, too, and we were all in tears--it could have been me in your book and you in my book!! Honestly, it was hard to figure out whether we laughed more or cried more.
           Katie, I was so blessed when you gave me your journals.  Eighteen years' worth--20 books!  I can't believe you thought of me every single day!  You have no idea how close you came to truths about me.  That day that you worried about whether I'd find the right boy...I had found the wrong boy and came so close to making the same mistake you made!  But I remembered the nights that I'd cried in my mom's arms--why would my parents give me up?--that I knew I couldn't risk doing that to another child.  I don't blame you, Katie.  You did do what was best.  My parents are there for me, and I've had a great childhood.  But you must know that it hurts, even when you know that your parents let you go for the best reason possible.  We talked about that a little, and we both cried a little more.  What a day of tears!!
             I'm looking forward to learning more about you.  I'm glad you understand that I can't call you Mom--that's not something I can do--but I was thinking--I learned German, and the word for mom in German is mutti.  I really think I want to call you mutti.
             So anyway, mutti :-), I'm looking forward to more time together with you.  Maybe one day you can meet my mom and dad, too.  They're great people, like I said.  But we'll play it by ear.
              I love you, Katie.  Mutti.
                                                                          Love, your daughter
                                                                                          Savannah