Colleen looked at the date on her calendar and sighed. A lifetime before – eighteen years, to be exact – she had given birth to a baby girl and given her up for adoption. Throughout the years, the thought of this child had haunted her. Was she smart, was she pretty, and was she healthy? Now, it was getting close to the child’s eighteenth birthday. The law in Canada made it possible for Colleen finally to conduct a search for her daughter once she had reached the age of eighteen.

Colleen decided to make her move. She called the newspaper in the town of Alberta, Canada, the baby’s birthplace. “Let me speak to your classified ad section,” she asked the operator at the Alberta Times. “I’d like to place an ad.” “Sure,” said the operator, “what’s your message?” Colleen began, “Happy Birthday.” Then she provided the name she had given her daughter when she gave her up for adoption eighteen years before, along with a simple message announcing her search and her phone number in the remote town where she lived.

That very same day, a woman named Jodi Mitchell had called the Alberta Times. Eighteen years ago, Jodi had been adopted. The only information she had about her adoption proceeding was that she was born in Alberta. The young woman also had placed an ad announcing her search. Immediately, the astonished editor picked up the phone and called Colleen. It was almost 11 P.M; well beyond the end of his work schedule. “Is there a problem?” Coleen asked, nervously. “No!” replied the editor, “it’s just that there’s a coincidence here that’s too big to ignore. There’s another ad in here that sounds, you know… similar to yours.” Colleen got goose bumps when he told her about the other ad. With a shaking hand, she wrote down the number the editor gave her and called the young woman.

Indeed, Jodi Mitchell turned out to be Colleen’s daughter. Who would have guessed they would place identical ads in the same distant paper on the same day, and who would have guessed that this helpful editor would be there to reestablish the bond of love between Mother and Daughter again?

Story offered by Jodi Mitchell

Comment
God, they say, is a master weaver who pulls together those who are meant to be with one another. Who else could have planned the extraordinary events that brought Colleen and her daughter together? Was it God’s Providential love putting together two lives that were meant to be with one another?

-Fr. Hugh Duffy