It all started back in sixth grade with Jennie Far. This was a day that she would never forget. This was the day that her mom would tell her that she isn’t actually her mother. She was the one who raised her, but not the one who actually gave birth to her, Jennie was blindsided. She didn’t know what to do. March fifth was the day her life changed.

She was sitting in the living room eating lunch and watching a movie with her mom. The during a commercial, her mom paused the TV and said,” Jennie, I have to tell you something.” She assumed that it would be about something that would be along the lines of “I can’t go to Florida with you this summer,” or “tonight we aren’t going to have spaghetti like we planned.” Not, “I am not your real mother, or “Your real mother and father died in a car crash just merely three days after they took you home from the hospital,” –nothing along the lines of that. She asked her mom what it was that she needed to tell her, but her mom was silent. Her mom was just sitting there of staring off into the distance, not knowing what to say. Jennie knew something was up, and she had to get down to the bottom of it.

“What were you going to say?” Jennie asked again, but still nothing. “Mom, I am going to leave the room if you don’t tell what you were going to –”

“I am not your real nothing,” said her mother.

Those words echoed in her head over and over again. “I am not your mother. I am not your mother. I am . . .”

Jennie was terrified. She didn’t know how to handle it. She was so beside herself. This new information changed her life forever. Nothing would be the same. The lady she thought was her mom wasn’t. She felt just like anyone would in this type of situation. She had so many questions. Who were the strangers living in her house? What happened to her real parents? What was she going to do now? Was she ever going to relocate her parents or someone really related to her?

Finally these words rose through her throat and bubbled out. “Well if you are not my mother, then how did you end up being my . . . caretaker?”