We spent so many years searching for information about my father’s adoption that we felt prepared for anything we might learn. Old records, news clippings, a court recorder and court documents were extremely descriptive of the modus operandi of Georgia Tann. Every single time the story was discussed, we talked about the multiple scenarios that could have described my father’s case. We knew.

Actually putting our hands on the case file took so long that it felt like the finish line. The documents, photographs and letters seemed like the end of our search. Everything was there. The tightly woven small town connections were reaffirming that everyone did what was right. Except… there was one thing that didn’t fit. One tiny blurb in a newspaper that we tried to justify with excuses.

Today, a small town pastor sat with my father and told him what we always knew, but never wanted to be true. My father’s birth mother published her child’s obituary in the newspaper, because she was told that her newborn son was dead.