My Aunt Was My Mother

Growing up, I always wondered why my parents never talked about my aunt.

It wasn’t just silence—it felt like a warning. After my grandmother died last year, I was helping clean

out her house when I found a locked box in the back of her closet. Inside… letters.

Dozens of them. All addressed to my parents. All written by my aunt.

At first, they seemed harmless. Apologies. Pleas to visit. Memories of me as

a baby. But the last letter… that one froze me. She wrote that my parents had forced

her to give up her baby. That I… was her baby. She begged them

to let her see me. They said no. She said she understood. That it was “for my own good.”