Jennifer pulls under the carport at her favorite cabin on a bluff overlooking the expansive Pacific Ocean and the log-jammed mouth of Kalaloch Creek. She lugs clothes, a Pendleton blanket bought on a previous visit, and groceries inside. She turns on the wall heater but leaves the front door open a crack, despite the October chill, so she can hear the surf murmuring below. She sinks down onto the log-framed couch, blanket cocooned around her. The tears she’d refused to allow on the drive away from Seattle’s urban bustle seep into a soft crease in her resolve here in the salt- and cedar-scented air of Washington’s wild coast. 

She focuses on the sound of the waves, seeking to quiet the roar that’s been swirling in her head ever since that damn email emptied the pool of happy reunion fantasies she’d tended for half a century, spilling a lifetime of wishes and dreams out to drain away into parched reality. 

Here, there’s no WiFi, no TV, and only spotty cell service – nothing to distract her from the internal tsunami that’s been silently racing toward shore all her life. Its crest rises now as it reaches the solid ground of knowing who her birth parents are, and how they feel about her. Her chest tightens as the tide draws back, feeding the oncoming wave and exposing the foundations of protective sea walls she’s built. She can see it coming, knows it’s inevitable, but the urge to flee is too strong to resist. 

She rummages in her duffel for warm socks and water-resistant pants, laces up her hiking boots, and heads back out to the car. The 90-minute drive to the Hoh rainforest gives her time to shore up her defenses. She parks in the visitor center lot, nearly deserted on a gray Tuesday in October. She heads straight for the Hall of Mosses trail, which leads to one of her favorite spots.

A light mist persists here, despite the sunshine on the drive. She breathes in the moist air, rich with the spicy-sweet tang of cedar and edgy green scent of pine. A stream gurgles off to her right, and she pauses halfway across the little wooden bridge to gaze into the clear, shallow water. She watches it sweep through delicate fringes of underwater grass that wave like thick emerald hair on the smooth stones.

She continues along the path, up a rocky, mossy incline, deeper into the lush forest. The welcoming burble of the stream fades behind her and as she crests the ridge, she feels the full embrace of the ancient rainforest cradling her. Sound is muffled by trees, moss, and mist, and the light filters dimly through the dense canopy overhead.

Jennifer steps over the gnarled roots of a “nurse tree” sprawling across the path. It’s a fallen giant, now silently crumbling under its own weight, smoothed by the constant caress of water, mothering new life. This tree is no longer living, but it is far from dead. Saplings sprout from it, roots straddling its girth and finding purchase in the ground below. A quilt of mushrooms, lichen, and moss fills the spaces between baby trees. She reaches out, lets her hand sink into a dense patch of moss. She closes her eyes and tries to let body and mind find each other again.

What did it feel like, to be nurtured by this tree offering itself to the next generation of giants? What would it feel like to reach her arms around a solid presence, and feel anchored to something she could hold onto forever? What would it feel like to reach for the sky, not fearing storms because she knew she was rooted and would not be blown over?

A part of her had hoped finding her birth parents would give her that elusive certainty that comes with roots. That they’d be overjoyed to hear from her, want to meet her and get to know her, and at last, her body would be connected to her roots and she’d never blow away in a storm. But the words, “We don’t see anything to be gained by that. You have your family and we have ours,” had taken a chainsaw to that dream.

“What is wrong with you?” Jennifer silently screams at herself. “You have a good life. A good job. There are people who love you. Why can’t you just be grateful for what you have instead of searching for something you have no right to find?” But for the last bit, about being grateful, she hears her adoptive mother’s voice, not her own. Shaming her for wanting to know her own story. But she does want to know her story. And she does want to know her people.

The wave of emotions finally slams into her shores, smashing through her elaborate walls and roaring through her past, present, and future. She can’t stop it this time. Can’t make a clever word joke or drive too fast with the radio blaring, or decide it’s really time to sort out the junk drawer in the kitchen. Jennifer sinks to the ground next to the fallen tree. One arm rests on the spongy trunk, fingers digging deep into the moss, and the other wraps around her head as she lets her head drop to her bent knees and the sobs storm up from deep in her gut. She leans into the tree trunk, solid despite the surface decay, and surrenders to the inevitable. It feels like the gaping hole left inside her will rip everything apart, leaving nothing recognizable once the wave recedes – if it ever recedes. She fears she’ll be stuck here, with no landmarks and nowhere to rebuild.

“What do you mean you don’t see anything to be gained?” she whispers into the moss. “You’d gain me!”

The waves of pain do recede, bit by bit. And her mind emerges, battered and dripping, but able to call this by its name for the first time. It’s grief. Her grief. Grief for the month-old infant her adoptive mother described receiving with such joy, “So tiny but so strong she held her head up and looked all around.” An often-told story meant to elicit pride, but seen now by her as a traumatized baby searching for something familiar. Grief for the lifelong sibling bonds she’d never have. Grief for the loss of any hope of touching her birth mother’s hand or hearing her voice. A lifetime of grief she’d never believed could be hers, should be hers. But it was her birthright. She’d have to find a place for it, and a way to live with it.

Jennifer focuses on her breathing as the storm inside her subsides. She sends her breath in and out through her fingertips, still buried in moss, and waits for the tree to release her. For the springy moss under her hand to signal, somehow, that it’s time to move on. When it does, she opens her eyes. Slowly. She stands, brushes forest debris from her pants, and continues down the path, ferns and branches closing in alongside and overhead. As she rounds the next bend, the Hall of Mosses opens wide and draws her in. Thick, wavering curtains of gray and green drape over branches, transforming lines into soft curves. Shafts of watery sunlight shimmer through the damp surfaces all around her, creating sparkling displays of spider webs, leaves, and moss. She stands right in the center of a glittering forest welcome, opens her arms wide, tips her head back, and twirls on the boggy, mossy ground like a little girl wearing a new dress at her birthday party. And all around her, the trees stand in silent approval, roots dug into soil, into other trees, curving past rocks, finding purchase.