My life so far

This has been a rather interesting week and a half. I'm not sure where to beging the recent events, but suffice to say, it really began 31 years ago. I met her in the fall of my freshman year in college. She knocked me off my feet. We both worked in that activity center of the university we were at as student custodians, we worked the early morning shift normally. We also set up for basketball games and other activities, so we did do some work outside our normal shift. I first remember seeing her sitting on a canister vacuum against the back wall of the elevator, wow!

Suffice to say that I got to know her and out relationship grew. We were young though, and made mistakes. We went places we should not have and as a result of our relationship, she became pregnant.

The pregnancy of a single woman 30 years ago, especially within the "society" that we had both been raised in. Our "society" did not allow for that.

I had left school by the time she found out, for some reason, I never knew until I received papers from the adoption people sent requesting that I sign a release. I was young, wasn't sure what I should do. I did what I thought she wanted, based on the paperwork and the letter that I had received, I signed and gave my permission. soon after, a son was born, it was 1975.

In January 1976 I joined the army, I had somehow reestablished contact with her, though I really don't remember how. We didn't talk about the sone we had. Maybe we were still too young, too ashamed, too scared. I went to basic training in South Carolina and remember one letter in particular from her, though she doesn't remember. I completed my advanced training in Massachussetts and was transferred to Arizona and on my way stopped and saw her in the spring of '77. She was in love with someone else by now, we had been apart for 2 years. We spent an evening together before I headed for Arizona, again, not talking about the son we had. Little did I know that this evenign would be the last time I would talk to her or hear from her for the next 28 years.