Who Would Have Guessed?

We never know how life is going to turn out. All we can do is make plans, try our best, then be prepared to make changes when necessary.
When I started my search for my birthmother, I hadn’t realized that she had passed away the year before. However, during my search I came across a fabulous women, her family historian and self-proclaimed romantic, who wound up helping me sort together the pieces of my life. She helped me get a story. My story. The story I go into detail in Call Me Ella. You see, Ella was Elaine’s favorite aunt. She missed her favorite aunt. In a way, I think I brought her favorite aunt back to life.
And where am I now? I’m totally awestruck that I am sitting on my new porch, enjoying lunch, overlooking a golf course, in the condo I just bought right above my new, favorite cousin Elaine.
As we were watching TV last night, both of us missing our husbands, mine is out of town on business and Elaine just lost hers to cancer, Elaine looks over to me, smiling, “Fifteen years ago when you sent me that first letter asking if you looked like anyone in my family, did you ever think we’d be sitting here today, living next to each other, watching tv?”
“Never in a million years,” I replied.
I never did meet my birthmom, but sometimes things do work out. Just not the way we ever imagined.