For Essie Hembree, 51, of Middletown, R.I., today will be a different kind of Mother's Day.
Mrs. Hembree will telephone her biological mother, Gaynell "Jimmie" Rowland, in Fort Worth, Texas. The last time she was on the line with her mother on Mother's Day, the "line" was an umbilical cord.
The two were reunited after 50 years last summer - the culmination of months of detective work by Mrs. Hembree, a Chattanooga native who now works as an office manager in Providence, R.I.
"It's overwhelming, actually, to think about what's happened in the last year of my life," Mrs. Hembree said in a telephone interview last week.
Mrs. Hembree grew up in Chattanooga. She was born at Erlanger hospital in January 1959.
At age 12, she found out from her adoptive parents, Ben and Gladys Pickett, that she had been adopted. The Picketts, now deceased, asked her not to contact her biological mother, she said.
Mrs. Hembree honored her adoptive parents' wishes until after Mr. Pickett died in 2008. (Mrs. Pickett had died 10 years earlier.)
Then, early last year, Mrs. Hembree asked the state of Tennessee to open her adoption records. Under state law, adult adoptees can contact their biological parents if the parents consent to surrender their privacy.
After a futile search for her mother through state channels, Mrs. Hembree decided on a new approach. She searched property-tax records in and around Chattanooga. She looked for any families named Pell that might be related to her birth mother.
"I probably mailed 200 letters," Mrs. Hembree said. "People started calling me. I had a lot of people say, 'I don't know your mother, but good luck."
One person who called, though, did have information.
Reita Pell Kelley, of Tyner, was a distant relative of Mrs. Hembree's mother, a fact she uncovered through her study of family history. She took up Mrs. Hembree's cause and began phoning family members in other states.
"Any time I can help somebody, I try to do that," Ms. Kelley said in an interview.
Eventually, after many long-distance phone calls, Ms. Hembree's 72-year-old mother was located in Texas. Mother and daughter spoke for the first time on June 1, 2009. Ms. Hembree said her biological mother explained the circumstances of her long-ago adoption.
"She told me the story," Ms. Hembree said. "She was not in good health. She already had three babies. She said, 'I didn't know how I would ever be able to feed and take care of you.'''
Ms. Rowland said the Picketts made her promise in 1959 not to try to contact Essie - a promise she kept for 50 years. Still, the baby "Essie Ruth" remained part of the family's oral history for a half century.
The two visited for the first time last September. Ms. Hembree and her husband went to Fort Worth for a week. Ms. Hembree met some of her siblings and began the long, arduous task of reweaving the loose threads in her life story.
Today, Ms. Hembree will reconnect with one of the simple pleasures of adulthood, calling mom on Mother's Day.
"It's a very emotional time," she said.
Motherhood is timeless. Fifty years is but a baby's breath in the eternal sweep of a mother's love.
E-mail Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com. Follow his "Life Story" and "Test Drive" columns on Facebook.