Woman Gives Her Son up for Adoption, 11 Years Later Accidentally Sees Him in a Hardware Store

One day, a woman walked into a hardware store while running errands. She noticed a familiar boy sitting there with an older lady as she stepped inside.

The boy was her son, who she had given up for adoption 11 years back. He was sitting there with his grandmother when the woman stepped inside the store.

She wrote a Reddit post explaining what happened in the store. It was a semi-closed adoption, so the woman couldn't talk to the boy until he turned 18. However, a strange thought struck her after seeing him in the hardware store.

The woman with the Reddit username Bmburner92 shared that she met her son's adoptive parents when she gave him up after birth. She explained:

"Semi closed adoption so I get photos once a year, no contact till he's 18."

She walked into a hardware store one day and noticed a familiar face sitting inside. She instantly remembered it was her son, and seeing him for the first time was an unusual experience for her.

"It can't be him," she thought to herself. She froze in her tracks and kept looking at her son. He also looked at her but didn't recognize her as his birth mother.

The accidental meeting had answered all the questions she had.

After a few minutes, a woman emerged and stood right next to him. OP (Original Poster) immediately recognized it was his adoptive mother. She waved at her, but she didn't respond.

Since OP had met her 11 years back, she understood it was difficult for the woman to recognize her. She walked past the boy and secretly told the woman that she was his biological mother.

The woman recognized OP after the reminder and greeted her. Meanwhile, the boy left his seat and explored the store with his cousin. OP sat with her son's adoptive mother and talked to her about him. She explained:

"We caught up, he's super smart, and only child, gets everything he can wish of. Everything I could never provide."

OP couldn't control her emotions and started crying after learning that the woman had given her son a life she couldn't afford. Despite receiving pictures of him smiling, she always wondered if her son was happy. The accidental meeting had answered all the questions she had. She recalled what happened next:

"She and I cried, he was walking back and saw us wiping tears away, and she said she would say I was a very special friend to her if he asks."

The woman said she would tell him about OP when she thought he was ready. However, OP had something else in her mind. She had no intentions of meeting her son when he turned 18.

OP confessed that meeting her son had changed how she felt for him. She didn't want him to wish her to be a part of his life. She explained:

"I would be okay meeting him at his request if he wanted more information, but I know I'm not his mother, that's not something I'll ever be nor something I desire to be."

She also explained that she didn't want to be considered a mother and asked other Redditors if it was right to feel this way.

JasonTahani asked OP to frame her relationship differently if her son reached out to her. He also assured her that there was nothing wrong with how she felt about her son. He said it was normal to feel emotional because she had met her son after more than a decade. OP read the comment and agreed to what he said.

Another Redditor named iputmytrustinyou replied:

"Thank you for sharing this beautiful moment. It seems like it happened in the best way it could have."

Meanwhile, thesnugglypuppies shared that she went through something similar. She met her birth father when she was 18, and he also felt like he didn't want to be the father figure.

However, they developed a friendly relationship after they met, and the girl considers her an uncle more than a father. She appreciated OP for handling the situation beautifully.

She also assured OP that she would naturally build a positive relationship with her son, so she doesn't need to worry about it.

Most users agreed that OP didn't do anything wrong. They believed her feelings were genuine, and she didn't need to feel bad about them.

Questions to Ponder:

Do you think OP was being selfish?

OP didn't want her son to know that she was her mother. Nor did she want to play any part in his life. She believed he was better off knowing nothing about her. Some people might feel she was being selfish by not telling her son about his true identity and not wanting to be a part of his life. What do you think?

If you were OP, what would you have done if you saw your biological son you've never met the way she did?

When OP recognized her biological son, she introduced herself to her son's adoptive mother and discussed her son's life. In her shoes, would you have done the same? What would you have done differently?

If you enjoyed reading this story, you might like this one about a daugher who found a letter addressed to her in her mother's drawer and recognized her late father's handwriting.

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