Finding Lana

Well friends,
First let me apologize for being absent for so long and leaving you hanging on the last post "Huge Development in My Search for MY Birth Mother." The fact is I FOUND HER! I found her Jan. 23 and a DNA test delivered the absolute stamp of validation on Feb. 8, yes just this past Monday!

Of course, it has been a shock -- an emotional whirlwind that has kept my blog at bay. To personally write well I need a holistic view of the story I am going to share. I don't write easily "from the trenches." And I know this wild story will and must be told in a series of "chapters". There are far too many characters, back stories, secondary story lines to include. Can you tell I am still putting it off?

Truly I am not sure where to begin. This has been a remarkable new year. As you recall in my Forty and Flatulent post my number one priority - yes listed under "1." - was: "This year what can readers of this blog expect?... 1. The search for Diane begins. My birth mother is probably in her 60's right about now - I begin with an application to Find My Family on NBC this month.

WOW! That first goal took only 23 days? THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT YEAR! But seriously. Talk about the law of attraction! Little did I know what I would set into motion with those words. Again I quote from one of my favorites by Goethe:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

I love that last sentence "all manner of unforeseen incidents" - this part is the key if you ask me.

Yes I will get to the "How in world did you find her part." But I can't impress enough that this truth came to me because I asked the universe for it, because I believed it was possible, because I asked my personal angels for help and because I did my part too - I acted to create my reality and fulfill my dreams. I know it is not all that easy for everyone, and some people have searched for years. But I believe we only get what we want when the time is right and when our own heads and hearts are truly in line with what we seek. Ok - enough arm chair spirituality! Commit, pray and act - enough said!

However I branched into the spiritual part of it for a reason. Truly this whole reunion story starts Jan. 18, 2009 with a simple prayer to my recently deceased adoptive mother on the eve of her first birthday after she left this world.

"Mommy please give me a dream tonight that will reassure me you are with me in spirit and looking over my life."

I woke the next day remembering a vivid dream. It was not about my dear adoptive mom, but it was a dream with a person and a topic about which I had never dreamed before. In the dream I found my birth mother and her name was Lauren and not Diane -(later I would learn her name was Lana); and she was very happy I had found her. I also saw I had at least one brother - I saw him riding a four wheeler in the country in my dream. Most importantly, in the dream I was holding a black and white picture of her and telling her I found her because I had found a photo that looked just like me.

I awoke and immediately knew this dream was a sign from my adoptive mother that she had heard my prayer -- this was a dream that did stand out and did let me know she was listening. What I did not connect to the dream was that it was also a message that I would find my birth mother and that obviously my dear Mommy intended to help.

One year later on Jan 19, the eve of Mommy's second birthday off this earth, I sat at my computer and opened an email from a Search Angel (my volunteer adoption reunion researcher). The email from my Search Angel noted the name Lana Carol Williams who married a Reedy in California in Dec. of 1971. It was a long shot that Lana would be from Texas and marry in CA and then come back to Texas, but I searched her name in Google "Lana Carol Williams Reedy" anyway; and up popped a link to the Houston, Texas MB Smiley High School Class of 1967 reunion web page. I found the Senior Photos page and scrolled down quickly to the W's. Holding up a piece of paper to the monitor, I covered the student names on the left side of the screen. I wanted to recognize her, not the name; and there, almost at the very bottom of the page I saw myself.

There it was a black and white photo of a young woman who looked remarkably like me! I did not recall in this moment the dream I had asked for on this very night exactly a year before, but my body tingled with knowing. I saw it, my eyes and heart saw it, but my brain had spent 40 years building logical barriers of stern protection. My brain often fought my heart in grocery stores, at concerts, behind gas pumps. So many times over the years I thought I saw my face on the countenance of some woman old and pretty enough to be my mom. But my brain told me no, don't ask this total stranger that bizarre question. I only listened sometimes.

But here it was this picture. I would not connect the picture to the dream, which came exactly a year before to the day, until I sat down to Journal to my mother on the second anniversary of her post-life birthday. My entry was to tell her the good news about the lead. And as I wrote, that little voice in my head said 'read what you wrote to her last year'. So, I set about to find my prior year's entry in my journal and there it was. Jan. 19, a mention of the dream about finding my birth mother through a photo! I also journaled about the dream under my notes section on Facebook "Pychic Coinkidinks" (see the entry dated Jan. 18, 2009).



So there you have it! It was from here that I posted the blog entry "A Huge Development in My Search for My Birthmother" What has transpired between that moment and this one will be written here in time via my creative bursts.

If you have read the prior blog you have already read the letter I mailed to Lana Jan. 21. Perhaps next I will invite Lana to write about the Friday morning in her kitchen when her husband handed her a small cream colored envelope with a golden hummingbird seal on the back. I have not yet told Lana I sent her this letter on the Thank You stationary I sent out after my Mommy's memorial. The cards purchased to say 'thank you and goodbye' on behalf of my mother's passing, would now also say 'Thank You' from her and mark a new beginning.