I Think My Mom Was Hiding a Terrible Secret
My mom passed away last month.
They said it was sudden — an aneurysm, gone before she even hit the ground. No pain, no fear, just… nothing. Everyone told me that should be a comfort. I’m not so sure anymore.
Because these last few weeks, everything I believed about her — about myself — has fallen apart.
I grew up in what looked like a perfect family. Two parents who loved me, a safe home, friends, hobbies. But when I was seventeen, everything cracked.
A minor accident put me in the hospital. Nothing serious — except when the doctor told me my blood type didn’t match either of my parents.
Both were type B.
I was type AB.
That was impossible.
When I confronted Mom, she broke down. She told me I was adopted. That it was a closed adoption, that my birth mother wanted nothing to do with me, and that she and Dad loved me as their miracle child.
I hated hearing it. I felt detached, betrayed, like my entire identity had been stolen. But eventually, I accepted it. They raised me. They were still my parents. Right?
Things went back to normal. At least on the surface.
But deep down, I never stopped asking questions. Who was I really? Why had my biological mother abandoned me? Did she even love me?
Mom stuck to her story. Adoption. Closed records. End of discussion.
Except I started hearing my parents fighting at night. Whispered arguments. Crying. Something was wrong.
Finally, one evening, they sat me down.
Mom told me she hadn’t gone through an agency. She claimed she met my biological mother — a homeless, addicted woman — in another city. She said she took care of me while the woman was in rehab, and in the end, that woman gave me up because she knew I’d have a better life.
Mom was crying as she told me. She swore my birth mother loved me but couldn’t raise me. I believed her. I wanted to. It even comforted me.
For a while, I thought that was the end of it.
But after Mom’s funeral, things got worse.
Dad was drowning himself in alcohol. He barely ate. Barely spoke. I tried to comfort him, even told him I wanted to find my biological mom — to thank her for giving me to such an incredible woman.
That’s when I saw it.
The look in his eyes.
Not grief. Not pain. Something darker. A scoff, almost disgust, when I mentioned her.
When I pushed, he broke. He laughed, then cried, muttering:
“We’re all going to hell anyway.”
Later, drunk and rambling, he whispered the name of the city. The one Mom claimed she had met my birth mother in.
And I made the worst mistake of my life. I searched.
It took hours of digging. But eventually, I found it.
A forgotten website, seventeen years old.
The first image nearly knocked the air out of my lungs.
A baby.
My baby photo.
“Have you seen me?”
Underneath — a smiling couple. My real parents.
The site had videos too. The one I’ll never forget shows a man pacing in a parking lot, holding a crying infant. His wife was inside a shop. Everything looks normal until a woman appears.
Dark hair.
Face hidden.
Moving faster and faster toward the man with the baby.
My blood turned cold.
The man smiles at her, probably assuming she wanted to see the baby. He doesn’t realize until she lunges. Screaming. Tearing the baby out of his arms. Kicking him to the ground.
Then she starts yelling for help.
“He’s trying to steal my baby!”
People rush in. They beat the man down as she clutches the child and runs.
The camera catches her face for just a moment.
I wish it hadn’t.
It was Mom.
The website told the rest of the story. The real mother begged for years. She posted updates, desperate pleas, photos. Her husband — my real father — killed himself two years after the kidnapping.
She kept searching for me, alone, for fifteen years.
Her last post appeared half a year ago:
“I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. To my husband, I failed you. To my child… if you ever read this, I’m so, so sorry. To the woman who took you, I hope hell exists. I’ll be waiting.”
Her obituary was published four months ago.
Now I sit here, everything I thought I knew burned to ash.
Mom is dead.
My real parents are dead.
The only one left is the man downstairs, passed out drunk, who kept her secret for nearly two decades.
What do I do?