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The letter a Tralee mother received from her son she had given up for adoption, 26 years previous. Photo Facebook/Ryan Tubridy Show.
A TRALEE mother shared an emotional story about her son who was given up for adoption and didn’t see for 26 years, as part of An Post letter competition on the Ryan Tubridy Radio Show on Monday.
The woman, known only as ‘Marian’, told the heartbreaking story of her son, John, whom she gave up for adoption at the age 16 and how everyday after that she waited for a letter about him.
In 1961, Marian was pregnant ran away from Tralee to Dublin to cover up the birth. While in Dublin she worked in Baggot Street Hospital and lived in staff quarters.
After giving birth to John, she only spent an hour with him before he was taken away. Marian spoke about having John for that precious hour.
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“There was another girl in the ward that was giving her baby up for adoption so we kind of spent that hour together,” she told Tubridy on the show yesterday.
“I couldn’t even tell you her name now. The sister of the ward came in and took him away. She didn’t even say: ‘Say goodbye’. She just said: ‘We will take John now’. That was it. I had christened him myself.”
First contact was made by a nun going by the alias of ‘Mary Murphy’, she sent a letter to Marian’s childhood home which just a phone number.
The letter said; “Dear Marian, I knew you in the 70s. If you want to get in touch with me, here’s the number.”
Marian says: “I just saw the number. It’s weird but I knew straight away what it was, my son looking for me. My son who was adopted when I was 16.”
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Three months later a second letter came to her childhood home and this time it was from John.
It read: “Hello, what a great surprise to hear from you so quickly. I am looking forward to meeting you also. There is plenty of questions I would like to ask, but this note is not the place. I have asked Sister Gabriel to arrange our meeting during the week if that is suitable. Looking forward to meeting you.”
Marian says: “Every day, I knew it would happen. Waiting to see him, to talk to him, to have him back in my life. To know how he was, where he was, what happened to him. I only saw him for an hour, that was it.”
“It was unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I waited so long for that day, 26 years I waited for that day to come.”
Marian, could now finally arrange to meet her son and when she did she said; “I would have picked him out of a crowd.”
“Meeting him was just amazing. I heard him speak as he came down the stairs with Sr Gabriel in the adoption society in Haddington Rd.”
“I heard him speaking and I said: ‘Oh he has a Dublin accent’. Then he walked in the door and swept me off my feet into his arms. He was 6ft 2, a big man. It was amazing. I can’t describe it.”
From that point on, John, was an important part of her life. Marian, became a grandmother to John’s daughter whom she loves very much.
Sadly, John, passed away two years ago. Marian still treasures that first letter she got from him, which says she’ll take to the grave.
