More Than Just Coincidence
Heartwarming, compelling and genuinely remarkable, More Than Just Coincidence is the true story of a mother who was reunited with her daughter, twenty years after she gave her up for adoption, in the most incredible of circumstances.One hot summer day in 1970, teenaged Julie dressed her 10-day-old baby daughter for the last time. Then she placed her newborn into a nurse's arms and walked away, taking with her only a tiny plastic bracelet on which were written two words – 'Baby Wassmer'.Over the next twenty years, the print on the bracelet began to fade, but the memory of Julie's lost child continued to run, like thread, through the fabric of her life. Julie travelled the world and led an adventurous life, but at the back of her mind always remained the daughter she had let go.On 5 November 1990, a struggling writer, aged 36, Julie stared at the reflection in a mirror on her bathroom wall as she prepared for her first meeting with a literary agent. All of sudden a thought came into her mind: now might be the perfect time for her daughter to re-enter her life. A few hours later, in the most astonishing way, two worlds were about to collide.Real life can be stranger than fiction.
Читать More Than Just Coincidence онлайн беплатно
More than just Coincidence
The remarkable story of how a mother and daughter were reunited in one astonishing twist of fate
Julie Wassmer
Harper NonFiction
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperTrue 2010
© Julie Wassmer 2010
Julie Wassmer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
‘It’s Your Thing’, words and music by O’Kelly Isley, Ronald Isley and Rudolph Isley © 1969, reproduced by permission of EMI Blackwood/EMI Music Publishing Ltd, London W8 5SW
‘Days’, words and music by Ray Davis © 1968 DAVRAY MUSIC LTD & CARLIN MUSIC CORP, London NW1 8BD—all rights reserved—used by permission
While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein and secure permissions, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future edition of this book.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007354313
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007354320 Version: 2017-05-04
For my family
Margie and Bill
Sara
Caden and Tallulah
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—Itook the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.
‘The Road Not Taken’ Robert Frost
Table of Contents
Chapter One Black Plimsolls Tied With Ribbon
Chapter Three By Hope, By Work, By Faith
Chapter Four Rebel Without a Cause
Chapter Ten A Clock Stops Ticking
Chapter Thirteen 18 Jermyn Street
Chapter Fourteen Three O’Clock at the Pagoda
Close to the sea, near my home, I have a small wooden beach hut, where I spend long summer days with my husband, daughter and grandchildren. It is also the place where I write. Sometimes there is little more to distract me than the cry of seagulls and the turning of the tide. Sitting on the verandah, looking out at the horizon, I have a sense of completeness and calm, of everything being just as it should be. It is a feeling that eluded me for so long. Wherever I went, and however happy I was, I knew that within me there was an empty space. I was sure that one day the missing piece would be restored, but until then my heart would never be quite whole.
As a television scriptwriter I have countless plotlines to my credit but still none so extraordinary as the drama I experienced in my own life almost twenty years ago: an apparent coincidence so remarkable that many people have been compelled to search for more complex explanations as to how it could have happened.
Certainly it is hard to believe that mere coincidence could have brought together the disparate strands of my life in such an astonishing way, or provided me with the signposts that led me, at a precise time, on a precise day—5 November 1990—to a door on a busy street near London’s Piccadilly. Even then I could so easily have turned away. But I didn’t. And by crossing its threshold I came face to face with my long-lost daughter—without either of us knowing who the other was.
Two decades have now passed since that meeting. The fireworks that followed when the truth was revealed are long over but the emotions that overwhelmed me then are still just as poignant as they continue to reverberate through my life. How can I possibly describe what it feels like to abandon a child to strangers in a blind leap of faith, believing that they would be better parents than I could ever be? How can I explain the profound sense of loss; the absence so great that it becomes a haunting presence? How can I define the lasting joy brought by a reunion that seemed so random and yet so well timed?
Some have attributed this event to synchronicity, some to serendipity; others have seen it as fate. On a hot summer’s day in 2010, as I gaze out from the verandah of my beach hut at my daughter, playing with her own two children at the water’s edge, I know, as sure as my beating heart, that what drew me to her that day was more than just coincidence.
