I held Amanda’s letter in my hand, nervously flipping it back and forth. I held it under my nose, inhaling a faint fragrance—her perfume perhaps? The envelope itself was beautiful—elegant and refined. I opened the seal as carefully as I could. Thankfully I didn’t rip it. Inside were many pages folded together. Apparently she had much to tell me. I took a deep breath, hoping I was ready to hear it.
To my son,
If you are reading this letter, then Clyde has found you and my hoped upon plan succeeded. You are a young man by now. I hope you look like your father. I am sure you have a million questions for me and I have some, but not all, of the answers. I thought long and hard about whether it was appropriate to prepare this letter but a friend of mine encouraged me that it was the right thing to do.
As you probably know, my name is Amanda Franklin and I am your birth mother. I gave you up for adoption on the day you were born. If I allow myself, I believe I can still remember your smell as I held you for a short while after the delivery. You were so cute, my beautiful baby boy. I don’t remember anything about the delivery. I guess I blocked all of it out of my mind. But you…you, I remember.
I tried to forget for the last 24 years. I tried to forget everything about that time in my life. There was so much pain, so much hurt. But there was also you.
Please forgive my ramblings. I’ll start at the beginning.
I was born Amanda Wilding in San Diego, California, 53 years ago. I was the only child of a doctor and a school teacher. My childhood was unremarkable and completely normal. All the usual life events, nothing tragic or traumatic. I graduated high school and went to UCLA where I earned my bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. I got my dream job with ACON Laboratories in San Diego, working in medical research. There I met my first love, Patrick.
Patrick was two years older than me and so handsome. And smart. He had the darkest brown hair, almost black, with the deepest green eyes that held my heart from the moment I met him. We were inseparable. We married quickly. I was 24, he was 26. We rented a small bungalow near the beach and did everything together. We worked in the same lab together, worked on the same research teams, everything. We didn’t have much money but we didn’t care. We were young and in love.
Our research teams made big progress in diabetes medicine. We helped develop better instruments for measuring blood glucose for patients, among other things. It was extremely rewarding work. I was so proud of what we were doing together, Patrick and I.
I had just turned 29 when I got pregnant. At first I was not happy, as I had never wanted children. I guess I was one of those rare women whose work was her life and fulfillment. But Patrick was over the moon. He was so excited. He wanted to make a nursery out of our spare bedroom the first week. I made him wait.
My pregnancy was uneventful, as it progressed normally. I went through all the usual stages, gained the right amount of weight, passed all the tests. Sometime in those first few months, as you grew inside of me, my thinking all changed and I wanted you more than I wanted anything else in life. I couldn’t stop thinking about holding you and feeding you and taking care of you. I fantasized about you and your father and me running our own research company and curing diseases together. That was our dream.
But dreams don’t always come true. Patrick and I were driving in a rainstorm to my parents’ house for a dinner party. I didn’t want to go. I remember I was getting tired easily in my sixth month. But Patrick said we should go, so we went. I don’t remember anything but what they told me afterwards. A semi truck driven by a drunk man crossed the center lane and hit our little pickup truck head on. Patrick was instantly killed and me nearly so.
I was in the hospital for two weeks before they brought me out of a medically-induced coma. I had a broken arm, broken leg, and broken ribs. I had various cuts and stitches on my head, neck, and torso from flying glass. I was lucky to be alive. So were you. The doctor said he couldn’t understand how you didn’t die. All their tests showed you were fine despite all my injuries.
They nursed my body back to health, but they couldn’t fix my mind or my broken heart. Patrick had been my life, my everything, even more than my work. More than you. My parents took me home to live with them and I had to see a psychologist for depression. They couldn’t give me any drugs for it because the meds might harm you.
As the days got closer to my due date, I knew I had to decide what to do. I could try to go on as a single mother without Patrick, but I had to be honest with myself. I wasn’t prepared to do that. Not in any way. I lost my job, our house by the beach. I lost everything. And I wasn’t sure I even wanted to live anymore. I couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into my nightmare. It wasn’t fair.
I made some calls and found out I could have my baby adopted through the county social services department. I had no money and no means of support so they helped me with the last month’s doctor bills. On May 17th I started labor. My father got me to the county hospital and you were born the following morning.
I don’t know what your name is now, but for the time I held you in my arms, you were Patrick John Watson, II. That’s what I told the nurse your name was. I think I signed a paper for your birth certificate but I’m sure it was changed later. I named you after your father, you see. Even then I had a glimmer of hope maybe you could carry on some part of him even if I knew I no longer could. Selfish of me, I can see that now.
I came home from the hospital totally lost. I slid deeper into depression. This time they gave me drugs, but those made me sick. Then came the news my mother was ill. She had breast cancer. I did my best to try to take care of her. It helped my depression but I couldn’t save her. She mercifully died six months later, her pain-ravaged body an empty shell.
My father was beyond despair. Like me, he loved totally and completely. We didn’t know any other way. It leaves you utterly empty inside when the one you love is gone. My father committed suicide one month later. No one, least of all me, expected him to do that.
I was devastated and now completely alone in the world. Everything I had ever known and loved was now a horrible reminder of the tragedies of that year. I needed to work. It was the one thing that always grounded me. I tried to find a job in California, but realized I needed to escape and start a new life away from all the memories.
I landed a job at Franklin Pharmaceuticals in Denver doing what I loved – medical research. I moved into an apartment and threw myself into the work. I slowly came alive again. That’s when I met Phillip.
Phillip was like no man I had ever known, even Patrick. Phillip was the company owner’s son, the heir apparent to the family business, but he wanted no part of running it. He wanted to do research, same as me. We met for the first time at a company holiday party. He worked on another research team in a different building so our paths had never crossed. We spent that evening comparing theories for splicing genes to introduce mutations into viruses. He was fascinating, a truly brilliant mind. I was hooked.
We got married a few months later, and we had a wonderful life together. Thankfully Phillip’s father kept running the company so Phillip and I could continue doing research together. We were proud of our advancements in diabetes medicines and we were starting research into some promising new cancer treatments when his father died suddenly of a heart attack during a board meeting.
Phillip really did not want to run the company. It just wasn’t his thing. But he wanted the research we were doing to continue. We tried to do both for a couple of years, but it became too much. Thankfully, another pharmaceutical company made an offer to purchase Franklin Pharma and Phillip got the board to cut a deal.
After the transition was completed a year later, Phillip and I decided to retire from research work. It was better left to younger minds than ours. We now had money, more money than we could ever spend, and we started to travel and enjoy the fruits of our work. Phillip especially liked the ocean so we spent time in Florida and the Caribbean.
Retirement was fine. I missed the work and the sense we were helping people, but I appreciated my time with Phillip. I fell in love with him more and more every day. He, more than anyone, helped heal the loss of Patrick, you, and my parents.
I never told Phillip about you. Or Patrick. I told him a little about my parents. About my childhood and that my parents were dead. At first I just didn’t know what to say. It was such a sad chapter of my life I couldn’t think about it without getting seriously depressed so I stayed away from it. I realize now it was unfair to the memory of the people I had loved so very much. But I can’t go back and fix it now. I kept a secret from the man I loved and I regret it so much now.
Phillip died in a skiing accident almost three years ago. I miss him every day. After he died I got involved in charity work to keep myself from depression. It helped. I needed a sense I was helping people, making a difference in someone else’s life. It was always the driving force of my life, my purpose, my reason for being.
When I got the diagnosis of cancer, I was prepared for it. I think I even half expected it. My mother’s cancer was the same kind, and it’s believed to be genetic. So I knew my odds straight away. But I’m a medical researcher at heart. I endured the chemotherapy and the radiation so they could run tests and do chemical comparisons. Anything to help find a way to ultimately beat the beast that is cancer. I am hopeful I helped in some way.
My fight is nearly over. I suspect I have days at most, not the weeks my doctor keeps trying to encourage me with. And I’m ready.
But there is the unfinished matter of you, my son. I feel the need to apologize to you. Not for giving you up – I still think that was the most loving thing I could have done at the time for you. But for denying your existence to my Phillip and my friends. Even to myself, really. For that I am truly sorry. It was never my intention to cause you harm.
In the past few months I have been thinking about a way in which I can acknowledge you and maybe help you in some way. I know that I may appear to be selfish, waiting until I’m gone to do this but I feel it’s for the best. We have no chance for a relationship of any kind now and I would never want to burden you with such a thing at this point in our lives. But I do care about you in my own way and I have to do something.
What I have is money. A lot of money. I don’t really know how much. I leave that to the bankers and lawyers. But Patrick and Phillip both taught me one important lesson about money – it’s a tool for either doing good or doing evil. I am choosing to believe you will be an agent for good. If there is any truth to genetic inheritance, I have to believe your father’s passion for doing good for others will have crossed over to you. I sincerely hope so. He believed the best life was one lived helping his fellow man. Do that, young man. Live your life to help others. The rewards are beyond your imagination.
The other thing I want to leave to you is two pieces of advice. These come from lessons I have learned the hard way. The first is this – when you love someone, love them with all your heart. With everything that you are. Totally and completely. Hold nothing back. Yes, you may get hurt. You probably will in some way. I lost two men who were the great loves of my life but I don’t regret for a second loving them with everything I had in me. I promise you that a life lived fully loving is a life well lived.
The other is this – do not let fear rule your life. There is much to be afraid of in this world. Circumstances, people, things beyond our control. I let fear rule me after Patrick died and it led to deep depression and difficult, regretful decisions. Do not be afraid of life. Do not be afraid of others. Be who you are and who you believe you were called to be and forget the rest. If someone doesn’t agree or doesn’t like you for it, then they don’t appreciate you for who you are. So move on. Get on with your life and don’t hold back. If you have to, do it afraid. But do it.
In my heart I know you are alive. I can feel it. Patrick and I did some great work in the lab together but you are the best thing to ever come from us. Please take the gift that I am giving you as just that, a gift to do something great for others. I pray it is not a burden but a blessing to you.
With a hopeful heart,
Amanda
As the last page floated out of my hand onto the bed beside me, I realized I was holding the edge of a bed sheet in my fist—and it was soaking wet from my sobbing. I must have grabbed it so my tears would not ruin the beautiful paper. I was a mess.
My emotions were all over the map. My heart broke for Amanda. So much tragedy, so much pain. The loss of two husbands—and a baby. I was truly grateful she no longer suffered. But my mind rebelled against her reasons for giving me up. Lots of people have kids and make do with what they have. Yes, it would have been hard. But much of life is hard, isn’t it? She cared so much about helping other people, but what about me?
My thoughts shifted to Patrick—another father snatched from my life. Why had life consistently denied me the one thing I desperately needed? I started sobbing again, eyes squeezed shut against the deep, deep pain in my soul. I felt utterly abandoned. I ached for the loss of two people I would never have the chance to love. For the lost opportunities to know them as they were. I didn’t want their money—I wanted them.
As my anguish poured out, drenching the sheet clutched in my hands, an inexplicable light began to flood the empty, broken places in my heart. I only had brief glimpses of their lives, very little of their true substance. I may never feel their arms around me, but I had their example. I had their DNA. And I could learn.
Pushing aside my self-pity, I thrust myself into Amanda’s shoes. And I saw it, the cold logic in her decision to give me up, and the real love that motivated her to make it. She had suffered inconceivable loss, including her own sense of self. My father was gone, and she simply could not be the mother I needed in that moment, so she took steps to make sure I had someone who could.
How could I hate her for that? She did what she could for me, believing it was for the best. All in the face of horrible circumstances. That she even survived was a testament to the strength of her character and convictions.
And I survived, too. My adopted life was far from perfect. There had been real loss. But there had been real love, too. My mother, facing many similar challenges as Amanda, raised two boys the best she could. She sacrificed much to meet our needs. I had never really stopped to consider the cost to her. No wonder she was worn out and had little left to give. I owed much to both of these women.
Where did it all leave me?
Amanda Franklin spent the last hours of her life thinking about what she could do for me. Her words, so tragically written, proved she cared. She had given me a chance for a happy life at my birth. And she had given me something more. A lot more. The money was on a shelf in my mind for now. The numbers were still incomprehensible. But at least I knew why she did it, why she left it all to me.
As I reread her last words I realized she had given me some guidance on how to handle her gift. Love fully, do it afraid, do good for other people. She was offering me the opportunity to carry on a legacy—the legacy of Patrick, Amanda, and Phillip. To help people have better lives. It sounded wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.
I was a bookkeeper working in a small company. I lived in a tiny apartment and drove an old used car. I had one hundred seventy dollars in my checking account. I wasn’t a medical researcher discovering new cures for diseases. How could I change the world and make it better for other people?
I wanted to. I was on board with her vision. I felt energized by just the thought of it. I wanted that to be me. Making a difference. Be like Amanda and Patrick. But how to do it?
I figured the money was supposed to be part of it. She had called money a tool. I never thought about money that way before. A tool, like a shovel for digging a hole or a hammer for a nail. A way to get something done, something necessary accomplished. A way to right a wrong maybe, or change a life for the better.
Sitting there on my luxurious hotel bed, ideas started percolating. I felt like I instantly had some secret insight into who I was and who I was supposed to be. I was Jack Schaeffer, not Patrick Watson, but I had parts of Patrick and Amanda in me. I came from good people, people who made a difference. People who changed things for the better. I wanted to be like that. For them. I wanted to be the legacy they never knew they had.
But I also knew I had a lot to learn. A lot was going to have to change. My thinking needed to expand. I needed to get outside myself more, think beyond the horizon I could see. Live for something more than the immediate moment.
I knew one other thing with an absolute certainty—I could no longer be afraid of life. I was going to be me. No matter what. It was time to do it, even if I had to do it afraid.