In a room that smells a mix of joy, grief, and cafeteria pancakes, your birth mother makes her offering. Her eyes are drawn and resolute; she places you in my arms. It is time, and when we say goodbye, the hospital door cannot contain the keening, as if one hundred sailors had been lost at sea. I am dizzy with the confusion of relief and remorse. Driving you home, my eyes dodge between the rearview mirror and you, my newborn baby. Will there be flashing lights and sirens? Nobody told me that adopting you would feel so much like stealing.
Laura Barr, a bibliophile, runner, and mother, guides high school students in creating personal narratives that tell their best, unique stories with authenticity and creativity.