Remembering those left in limbo by the events of 9/11

Before 9/11

Today is the tenth anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center and my thoughts invariably stray to the first parents who wondered if their children whom they would never know died in the World Trade Center, and to the adoptees who wondered if their birth parents whom they would never meet were in the buildings as they went down. 

I am one of the fortunate natural mothers who never had to wonder. On one of her trips east to visit me, my found daughter and I spent much of an afternoon at the World Trade Center. It was when the open-air floor was available to visitors, and since we both liked heights, we sat there on a park bench for about 45 minutes and chatted while we watched helicopters fly below us and around the buildings. In my mind's eye, I can see the two of us sitting there, happy just to be together.

My daughter was camping in Door County in Wisconsin ten years ago today, and as soon as she was able she found a pay phone and called me. Though I live a hundred miles away from Manhattan and the WTC, she wanted to be reassured that I was all right. I remember how deeply pleased I was to get that call. Though she had been adopted and I did not raise her, we both had the knowledge that the other was safe. Everyone deserves that kind of peace of mind.

Adoption with sealed records is wrong on so many levels, but to leave lives in emotional limbo for ever is enough reason to end it, and end it today.--lorraine