(This is going to be hard for me -- telling this story. I don't know why. It just feels like it has to be perfect. It's going to take some time. Please stay with me.)

The phone rings. It's my mom.

"Guess who I just talked to," she says.

"Who?" I ask. I don't like guessing games.

"Well, just take a guess," she says.

"I don't want to guess," I say, and she knows I mean it.

"It's your daughter," says mom, pausing for a moment, "and she wants to see you."

I only have one daughter. I know immediatlely who and what this means, but I'm so anxious to reply that I can't think of the words. I'm stunned. I can't move. I can't think. I can't talk.

Mom is saying things about meeting her half way in such and such a town. I can't really hear her.

"Yes," I say, "Yes!" And, yes is all I can think of for the rest of the conversation.

Whatever she wants, whatever it takes -- I'll do it. I'll go anywhere she wants me to go. I will be there! To see my daughter for the very first time since she was born, I will be wherever I have to be at whatever time she wants me there.

I get off the phone and, in a daze, stumble in to see my husband. I need to talk with him. I'm stunned. It's a shock, but this is such wonderful news -- almost too wonderful to contain. What if something happens? What if she changes her mind? What if she gets into an accident on her way to meet me? What if my car breaks down on the way . . .

I see my husband, and I can tell that he knows this is important. I'm smiling. I can feel it on my face. I have to sit down.

He doesn't even know I have a daughter.

There are more phone calls -- changes of plan. Each time my heart races. Did she change her mind? Will I not get to see her after all?

"But, she still wants to meet with me doesn't she," I plead.

"Yes? Well, then any where -- I will be there. Whenever she wants. I will be there!"

I would crawl on my hands and knees to her front door if that's what she wanted. After 24 years, I need very much to see my daughter. I have, like any other mother, NEEDED to see my daughter since the day she was born -- NEEDED to see her face, touch her, hold her, hear her voice, . . . just like any other mother.