Tears. I doubt that even the most hardened people do not get through a reunion without some tears, whether they are tears of relief and joy or tears of fear and sorrow. Reunions between mother and child touch our deepest feelings, our strongest emotions. I honestly do not remember if I cried when I read the letter informing me that the Searcher, whoever he or she was, had located my daughter already from the clues I left in Birthmark--all I had to do was ask and pay the fee. I asked, and now I had her name, her other parents' names and whereabouts. She was found. What I remember is the enormous relief of the exact moment I read that letter. I was sitting at my kitchen table. Imagine walking on a tight wire for 15 years, holding yourself up and in balance, praying you don't wobble this way or that and fall off, and then learning that suddenly, in the nanosecond it takes for an idea to be realized in the brain, you are able to step off. That is what I felt.
