**Diary Entry**
Every day, I carried this quiet ache inside me, like a stubborn echo in my chest. It started back in 1979, when I was still youngmy twin daughters were taken from me at just eight months old. They were whisked away from a government clinic in London and given up for adoption illegally. For years, I wondered where they were, what their lives had become, if they ever thought of me. I searched hospitals, military records, churches, archives that felt like stone vaults, giving nothing back.
*Perhaps one day Ill find them, even if theyre just shadows in my memory,* Id whisper to myself. *I still call for them in my dreams.*
Decades passed in silence, dead-end leads, broken trails. Then, a glimmer of hopea DNA database in America, dedicated to reuniting families. With trembling hands, I sent my samples, waited for messages, checked emails with my heart racing. It was agony, swinging between hope and the fear they might be gone forever.
Then the call came. My heart nearly stopped. *”Weve found them,”* they said. My twinsliving in Italy. Theyd grown up with another family, under different names, speaking another language, shaped by a world I didnt know. Yet somewhere inside, they still carried a piece of me.
*”Mum”* one of them said, her voice shaky on the other end of the line.
I held my breath.
*”Its me,”* I murmured, tears spilling over.
We planned the reunion quietlyno fanfare, no cameras, just the raw need to see them breathe. When they stepped off the plane, their suitcases were light, but the weight of forty-five years hung heavy. Their eyes darted around, searching for something*someone*until they found me.
*”Mum,”* Elizabeth whispered, arms outstretched.
My girlsnow womencrushed me in an embrace that spanned a lifetime. We clung to each other, sobs muffled against shoulders, hearts hammering. I held them, finally feeling the warmth of the children Id loved blindly, mourned endlessly, dreamed of without proof.
*”There arent words,”* I choked out. *”Ive waited my whole life for this.”*
Between tears and laughter, they answered:
*”We never stopped imagining you,”* Charlotte said. *”We looked for you in old songs, in faded photos, in stories that never mentioned your name.”*
*”They told us lies,”* Elizabeth added, voice trembling. *”That you didnt want us. But seeing your face nowit erases all of it.”*
We walked through the airport, taking pictures as if we could beg time to stand still. Later, at home under soft lamplight, we ate, talked, laughedfinally without oceans between us. I listened to tales of their childhoods, filled with places I didnt know, names Id never heard, languages I couldnt speak. They learned the truth, toowhat happened at that clinic, whod orchestrated it, the secrets buried in official papers.
*”Thank you for fighting,”* Charlotte said, brushing my cheek. *”Thank you for never giving up.”*
Elizabeth nodded, eyes wet. *”I looked for you, Mum. Always.”*
That night, I fell asleep clutching a new photo of the three of us. For the first time in decades, I felt peacenot for what wed lost, but for what wed reclaimed. My girls began weaving a new story with me, one where the past didnt define us but could finally be faced with love.
And in the warmth of that house, alive with late-found laughter and promises for tomorrow, I understood: wounds may never fade completely, but they can heal. Years may steal embraces, but truth can return them. And identity isnt measured in timeits in how long you searched for yourself in each other.
