When I learned that someone other than me was also searching for Mary, the information raised the possibility that I have a sibling, a possibility that has wrenched my soul. I might have a brother or sister alive in the world, one I have never met, and we have no way to know or find each other unless our paths cross in the search for Mary. This is indisputably wrong. With this development, along with the 41 years of life as an adoptee, 20 years of considering a search, two years of frustrating work in searching for my birth family, and the unbelievable recent efforts by opponents of open records for adoptees, I am finally becoming angry.

I am angry at the injustices against women in this society for so many years, in forcing women to give up their children out of shame or poverty, and then further shaming these women into silence for the rest of their lives.

I am angry at those people today who feel separating children from their birth families is an acceptable economic solution for a nation. I am angry at the injustice of the attitudes that have separated untold thousands of families. I am angry at the injustice committed against these untold thousands, against all adoptees, against our mothers, our daughters, and granddaughters.

I am a searching adoptee. Over the last two years, that phrase has, unbelievably, become routine in my world. The process, though, has become more baffling, more complex, and day by day, more intensely frustrating. What an incredible concept searching is! I am in search of my own family identity, and the laws in place for generations force me to struggle unbelievably for the most basic information. The laws in Tennessee, where

I was adopted, have thankfully changed, and whatever information gathered at the time of my adoption will be released to me by law after July 1, 1996. I am hopeful that the State of Tennessee gathered sufficient information 40 years ago to help me with my search.*