MY MOM DISAPPEARED WHEN I WAS 6—20 YEARS LATER, I FOUND HER NAME ON A NURSING HOME WALL
I was six when Mom disappeared. It was a chilly Tuesday morning—frost on the grass, the smell of maple oatmeal in the air. I still remember the way she tucked my hair behind my ears and whispered, “You’re my favorite adventure.” She said that often.
That day, she walked out the door. And never came back.
Dad said she needed space. That she “went on a trip” and “loved me very much.” I clung to those words for years, until they started to feel more like excuses than truth.
He raised me alone. Quietly. We didn’t talk about her much. And when I got old enough to press harder, he’d just say: “Some things are too painful to explain.”
I stopped asking.
Fast forward 20 years. I’m 26 now, working as a teacher and volunteering weekends at a local nursing home. I helped set up an art corner for residents—a spot where they could doodle or write whatever they wanted on a shared canvas wall.
That’s when I saw it.
Written in purple marker, near the bottom right corner: “Lorraine B. – still dreaming of wildflowers.”
I stared at it. Not a common name. Not a common phrase. She used to say that exact thing when we’d pick dandelions in the park. “Still dreaming of wildflowers, even in winter,” she used to hum.
I asked the front desk staff if they had a Lorraine B. on file.
They did.
Room 214.
My hands trembled the whole walk there.
When I stepped into the room, I saw her. Gray hair pulled into a braid, staring out the window. Her face had aged, but it was unmistakably hers.
“Lorraine?” I said.
She turned. And her eyes widened.
“I know you,” she whispered. “You’re my adventure.”
I dropped my bag. My knees nearly gave out.
She cried before I did.
It turns out she’d been diagnosed with a severe dissociative condition after a breakdown and had lived under state care for years, unable to recall much about her past. Only recently had fragments begun returning.
I visited her every day after that.
And I finally understood why Dad never told me everything—he was protecting us both, in his own broken way.
Some stories are full of hurt.
But this one, somehow, had a second beginning.
