It’s been awhile since I added to the blog. What a month. It started out with a nasty viral cough that lasted over 3 weeks. Mid- April my heart was broken with the horrendous crash in Saskatchewan of the Humboldt Broncos hockey players. Then the month ended with my poor mother breaking her hip again last week and ending up with a hip replacement. Needless to say any plans that I had made went out the window with the blog included. April is now over… and life goes on.
It reminds me of a wonderful surprise in April of 1999 that threw us for a loop.
It was Easter time and we were all excited. My sister Laureen and her family, and Nick and I and our family were heading to Vauxhall to mom and dad’s place. As Laureen was from Regina and we were from Calgary, this meeting of family was always a celebration. However, when we arrived this time my mother was quite serious. She looked at us and said, “I have something to talk to you about when we have a chance.” This left my sister and I with a bit of an uneasy feeling. What was the big discussion about? Many thoughts passed through our mind… was Mom or Dad unwell?
Finally on Easter Sunday night after supper with the kids all in bed, my mother said, “ I have something to tell you.” Trying to lighten the conversation I piped up, “You’re pregnant!” as this had been a common announcement over the past few years. To our surprise my mother said, “ Well, sort of.” We all looked at her quizzically as she looked down placing her hands folded on the table. A brief silence followed.

My mother began to tell the story she had held secretly for so many years. Over 50 years ago my Aunt Louise had had a baby that she had given up for adoption. In that time, having a baby out of wedlock meant dire consequences. As a teacher in a small town she would never work again. How would she be able to care for her child? How could she explain the situation to her respectable, religious family? My aunt Louise did not go back to teaching that fall. She worked in a store and then unexpectedly moved to Edmonton. In spite of wanting to be a mother to her unborn child, the only option was to go to a maternity home for unwed mothers to have her baby and then give the baby up for adoption so the baby could have a good life as the father of the baby did not want to marry her.

In January my mother, Louise’s older sister, decided to go visit her. My mother was a teacher also. That January in Saskatchewan it was very cold. The school ran out of coal, which was used to heat the one room schoolhouse so they had to close the school. The teacherage where my mom lived was close to the school and her room was very cold also. It was 1948. My mother remembers listening to the radio and hearing that Barbara Ann Scott had won the gold medal in ice skating at the Olympics. She remembers feeling very alone. She decided that she would go to visit her sister in Edmonton.

My mother arrived in Edmonton by train unannounced. In those days communication was by letter so my mother had been regularly corresponding with her sister, thus she had an address for her sister. When she got to Edmonton it was common that there was a Travel Aid that was there and able to assist my mom. The Aid recognized the address and was concerned so suggested that my mom stay at the YWCA while she went to give the message to my Aunt. My Aunt then met with my mother at the YWCA and the secret unraveled. Aunt Louise made my mother promise that her secret would never be revealed. My mother was the only person that knew about the birth of a baby girl who would be given to an adoptive family. She remembers sending a little outfit as a gift as she felt “Every newborn should have a gift, regardless of circumstances.” Aunt Louise continued to write to my mother. My mother remembers one letter in particular where Aunt Louise wrote; “Sometime you show more love by giving something up even if it hurts a lot.” My mother reflects, “Aunt Louise loved children so much and she was so good with them… It must have hurt a lot.”

Following the birth of the baby my Aunt returned to Saskatchewan where she found a job as a teacher the next fall. That winter Aunt Louise was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and was sent to a Sanatorium in Saskatoon. Never idle, she learned to make copper jewelry, which she sold, and she was a teacher to patients there. Finally, they removed one of her lungs before she was allowed to return to teaching in Saskatchewan in another school.

In 1952, my mother moved to a school in Enchant, Alberta where she met my father. Mom and Dad were married in April of 1953. Aunt Louise fell in love with my Dad’s groomsman and they were married and blessed with a son. Life was happy. On occasion Louise would talk to my mother about the daughter that she had wanted so much and had given up.

Then tragedy struck. At my Aunt’s 6-week check, following the birth of her son, she was diagnosed with cancer. Aunt Louise died just months after I was born. Her second born was only 18 months old. I never knew this spontaneous, fun loving aunt that my Mom missed so.

Years passed… I was 41 years old. My mother grew older. She was going to be 75. She was determined to never break the promise she had made to her sister. My mother had a box of letters and pictures that my Aunt had sent to her during and following her pregnancy talking about her thoughts and wishes for her baby. My mother had only shared the story with my father. She decided to shred the pictures and letters from my aunt… the only evidence of a story that only she knew. She would keep her promise to her sister.

Fate had other plans though. It was about that time that adoption records became open in the province of Alberta. One day my mother received a phone call listing her as the contact person for a baby born at a maternity home in Edmonton. The person on the phone asked if she would agree to be contacted by her niece… Ann. My mother felt her sister would want her to connect with her child. That phone call changed our lives.

Ann came to my mother’s 75th birthday celebration and met not only my mom and our extended family, but also a step father and brother. I’m sure there was sadness that she would never meet her birth mother, however, I felt Aunt Louise was smiling down from heaven that day. Her baby girl had come home.

I am continually amazed when I talk to Ann about the wonderful person she is and how we have so much in common. We are blessed to have Ann and her family in our lives.

On the way home from Vauxhall that Easter in 1999 I wrote the song “Ten Little Fingers”. This is Aunt Louise’s and Ann’s story. The miracle of Ann has changed our family history. Life is what Happens while we make Plans!

Maybe the song “Ten Little Fingers” speaks to you or someone close to you.
“Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes.
Look at you now that you are grown
A human being from a seed that was sown
And now the story is told…”