Abandonment is the ACE described in this beautifully written letter.
You might be my mom. Only you will know. I think about you often. I have visited the place where you left me, in that hedge in a beautiful straw basket with hand-knitted clothes, swathed in a blanket. This is where my identity was forged as a foundling. From that little bundle you left behind in 1965, a great big me was formed.
A dog sniffed me out. That day not only changed your life for ever, it changed the dog’s owners’ – an elderly couple who lived in that road and took me to the hospital after which I was named. Then I was taken to a children’s home. The local paper urged you to come forward, to no avail. My case was distinctive. I was far from newborn and had been nurtured for at least six weeks; a fact that remained an unresolved stress into my early adulthood.
I wonder if I look like you? Are some of my weird ways yours too? What’s nature or nurture – who knows? What I do know is that it’s been hard to decide what to include here – my experiences in care are too numerous for one letter.
For more of this story, written by Liz Richmond, go to http://www.theguardian.com/lif...e-in-hedge-as-a-baby]
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