It wasn’t the first Christmas we lived away from our parents’ homes; we’d weathered two Decembers in noisy basement suites before this place.

But it was our first in the cozy cottage that felt like a real home for a romantic young couple, two cats and a new pup.

I had been working at the local college in Chilliwack for two years, and in the spring we had taken the leap and moved to this town more than 70 km away from our families. Close enough to drive in on Christmas Day, but far enough away that it was also time to start some of our own traditions.

And 1992 had been a very eventful year in our lives.

In February we had found this tiny house literally wedged into the rock-side of Little Mountain (the back basement was dirt and sometimes a small stream ran through it). Not practical but perfect for us at this stage in our lives, nestled in a cedar forest, far from neighbours, overlooking a quiet street, a few other old houses, and a schoolyard.

The deck was the top of a carport, with no railings, but that didn’t matter to childless us. We entertained there regularly. The terraced yard was cedar, moss, dirt, and stone. We were in our blissful element.

April  — when we both turned 26  —  kicked off the most eventful few months of our lives so far.

The provincial government did something that at the time was monumental: it opened the adoption records so that adoptees and their birth parents could be reunited if both were willing. I had been part of advocacy groups on this issue for several years and was among the first in line when this happened.

After more than a quarter century of knowing next to nothing about my birth family, suddenly I knew that my birth mother’s name was _________, I had two teenage half-siblings, and that I used to be named Sara.

Within days I was talking with _________ on the phone, asking a multitude of questions, most certainly overwhelming her, and bringing to life part of my identity that had been shrouded in darkness and secrecy for decades. My adoptive parents were supportive about my search and reunion and so were my extended family and friends. For a few weeks I was on a high of self-validation and discovery, and of course since I’m a natural storyteller, telling the amazing story of finding out about my birth mother and discovering that a magazine that featured her had been sitting in my college library all along (that’s another story).

But it wasn’t so easy for ________ and soon after our all-too-brief phone and letter reunion, the lines fell silent again. I tried to be patient, as she asked me to be in the one letter that she sent in May, explaining that there were a multitude of complicated reasons, none of which were my fault, why this was so difficult for her.

In these days before Facebook and Instagram, I looked in the little red mailbox at the end of our gravel driveway for missives. None came.

I was sad, of course. Open exuberance is my natural state. Once you’re in my circle I want to embrace you with love. Holding back, being patient, respecting boundaries, was hard. It still is.

But life was going on at an action-packed pace. My brother and his Australian wife had eloped in April, giving us a blueprint to do the same. On July 4 we gathered with two friends and an elderly officiant at our special secluded beach near Tofino and formalized our 11-year relationship.

The summer was filled with after-parties, followed by an early fall reception at my parents’ place.

I excitedly shared all this news by mail and email with _______, and still was met by silence. I regularly checked the email inbox and creaked open the door to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Nothing came. My heart was heavy.

But life, indeed, went on. I was safe in the embrace of my loving man and many caring friends and family members. Things were going okay. I just wished that I could extend the circle to include the woman who grew me, birthed me, and ensured that I started on a good journey by placing me with my adoptive family. And I wished I could know my siblings.

As it turns out, in my life, I’ve been adopted many times over. Born a waif without a family, I have been welcomed by the embrace of many, starting with the parents who adopted me with I was just 12 days old. When I moved to the Fraser Valley I made new friends, including older women from work who sensed the seeker in me. I was hungry for mentors and mother figures.

Jody was one such friend. Twenty-eight years my senior, it turned out that one of her four children, Laura, was born within the same two-week period as Daryl and I. In fact, we all joined our families within a three-day period, as I was adopted on April 29 and they were born on April 28 and 30, respectively.

Our college closed at noon on Christmas Eve, and Jody invited me for lunch in then-bustling downtown Chilliwack. We went to the Copenhagen café, one of many restaurants that have opened and closed on the Yale Road strip during my decades in Chilliwack. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said. “I think that you and my Laura, who is home from university for Christmas, would like one another.”

We were 26 years old and Jody was setting her daughter and her new friend up on a playdate. As it turns out, she was right. Laura and I took to one another right away, and when I told her about the cottage on the hill, she said “oh, you live in the Crackerbox house!”

Laura had attended Little Mountain School across from our little pink shack, and the kids had called it the Crackerbox house because it resembled a faded box of Premium Plus crackers turned on its side. Legends abounded about the place. So the Christmas Eve playdate ended up with 26-year-old Laura asking her mum if she could go visit her new friend’s house.

There was a dusting of Christmas Eve snow and with colourful lights shining through the windows, our house painted a pretty Christmas scene. Laura came for tea and cookies, met the man and the pup and the cats, and we all had a delightful visit, a precursor to decades of friendship to come. I offered to drive her back to her mum’s house, but the opted to walk, and I accompanied her down the gravel driveway, saying goodbye as we approached my red mailbox.

I creaked it opened one more time before Christmas, in case any late cards had arrived. And one had. It was a Canada Post note telling me to head to the corner store on Broadway and First for a parcel. I shared the exciting news with my brand-new friend Laura. Then I headed there in a hurry.

The parcel was from ___________, from her home province across the country. I brought it home and Daryl and I opened it together. There were small presents for the cats and the pup, and ones specially addressed to us. Two were blown-glass ornaments that I treasure to this day, hand-made by an artisan in my mother’s tourist town. And they were accompanied by a card saying that we should meet in the new year.

It wasn’t the material gifts themselves — as beautiful as they were — that made this one of my most precious Christmas ever. It was the gesture, a symbol of a reignited connection, one that had been severed at birth, with both of us nursing the wounds and never expecting them to heal through the opportunity of a reunion ­— one that had been illegal until a few short months before. For a magical moment I felt acknowledged, that my yearning to know where and who I came from wasn’t a vain notion. I did have a birth family and they had been there all along, hidden by a curtain of shame, bureaucracy, and secrecy.

But the wounds caused by separation didn’t heal completely. None of this was easy and it still isn’t. ________ has never felt ready to meet me. Twenty-eight years later, I am now older than she was when I rediscovered her.

She did, indirectly, send her daughter to me as an emissary, and we enjoyed a few years of each other’s company when she lived on the west coast in the 1990s and 2000s. We built a sisterhood of sorts and had a genuine affection for one another. She was a playful auntie to my young daughters. My half-sister did more than anyone to help me understand the dynamics of the family I came from and allowed me to feel a genetic and familial connection to this grouping of what had been strangers to me. I also had the pleasure of meeting my half-brother and maintain a distant but amiable and admiring connection to him through the wonder of social media to this day.

But ______ remains mostly a mystery.

The trauma of giving me up and other losses and sorrows she has suffered in have been more than I’ve had to bear in my own life. That part is not my story to tell. I’ve learned that for now the best I can do for her is to leave her in peace. This goes against my impulse to include everyone in the embrace of my love and in my rollicking ongoing life narrative.

Events of the last year (2020) mean that there will never be a time when my mother is together with all of her children. I’ve grieved quietly and in isolation about this. And I am grateful for the acknowledgement that I did receive — so beautifully symbolized by the gifts sent from afar that Christmas of 1992 — and the love I was able to share with my sister.

Merry Christmas to all. Share love as best you can, all things considered.