Dear Ultimate Consciousness,
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for blessing me with Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting through the Storm. I am not sure what I was expecting when I began this book, but I am so grateful for all that is helping me to release and the wounds that are being healed along the way. One of the things he pointed out was that whether we are physically connected to or want to be connected to our ancestors, we are. We need to heal the wounds we have inherited as part of our legacy. One of the things he suggested doing was writing letters as a form of meditational practice to our ancestors and parents. As I thought about this, I realized I had written letters to my parents before and after they made transition. However, never in my life have I written a letter to my foster parents or to my birth parents. Even though I will never meet them, at least not in this realm, I am still connected to them and in their own ways; we will always be connected. So today, I am going to begin with the one that might be the hardest, the letter to my biological father. I am not even sure how you write a love letter to someone you never knew and are not even sure you ever met or ever say me. However, I am going to do my best.
Dear Birth Father,
I am not even sure what to say to you. I know virtually nothing about you. I know that I heard you were black. I know that in the 1950’s when I was born interracial marriages were not legal. I know you had sex with my birth mother at least once or I would not be alive, but other than that, I know nothing about you. It is hard to envision my ancestors you and those who came before you when I know nothing about you. I know your biological DNA is imprinted in me and shapes who I am in some way, shape, or form, but I have no idea how. When I look at myself in the mirror, do I see you? When people spend time with me is there a part of me that I inherited from you and my ancestors?
I was once asked what I would like to know if I could meet you and have a conversation with you, but I am not sure I even know what I would ask. There is a part of me that wants to know if you even knew I was born? Did you care? Did you ever think of looking for me? Do you ever think of me? Did you want to be a part of my life, then or now? Then I have to ask myself do I really want to know. Would it hurt for me to hear that you did not? What is it that I fear the most? Is it hearing that you never gave a hoot whether I was born or not, because you did not care about the woman you did that night? On the other hand, maybe you did and the societal expectations at the time would not allow you to be together. I do not know.
Do you know that I used to create this fantasy about how I was given up for adoption because you all could not be married? The truth is that I do not know that to be true. I do not know anything about you to be true except that you had sex with my birth mother one night. Plain and simple. While that might be plain and simple, the reality is that there are parts of you that live on in me and I do not know what they are. I would like to know, but most likely never will.
I would like to know the ancestors from your lineage who contributed to my being who I am today and I do not. Perhaps one day, in another realm, we will meet, but until that time, I will have to live with the peace of knowing that at least for today, I have shared with you how I feel. Perhaps one day, Spirit will help us to connect and for me to gain insight about you and the ancestry we share biologically.
The assignment from Thich Nhat Hanh was not to yell at you, which is what I feel I have done, but to write you a love letter. If I cannot love you unconditionally, even though I have never met you, then I cannot love anybody unconditionally. So today, I want to thank you for whatever it is you have given me that helps make me who I am today. I want to thank you for helping to birth me into this world because I have tried to use my time here on earth to help others experience the Divine’s love and grace. I do not have to understand, although I would like to, what happened that day, I just have to stand on the belief that God’s understandings are not my understandings and the Ultimate’s plan is not my plan. I would like to thank you for being a part of creating me and for any gifts you have given me. I would like to thank you for being brave and courageous enough to release me into God’s care knowing I would go to a space and family that would love as the Ultimate loves me.
So why do I love you? Because you helped create me. Because you did not interfere with God’s plan for my life. Because I choose to believe that you would want me to be happy and at peace in my life. Because I choose to believe you would want me to reconcile with my past and all the people from all my tribes who have helped raise me from the moment I was conceived until now. What I am coming to understand is that loving you is a choice I am making because you too are a gift from the Creator, I can recognize that part of you in me, and in all those I meet. To choose not to love you is to choose not to love the Divine and that is a choice I am not willing to make. Where ever you are and whatever you are doing in your life, I send you love, light, and positive energy. Until we meet in another realm
Namaste –
Sharon