B renda Litzo held the gift in her lap during the flight to Seattle. She sat, nervous and fidgeting the whole way, fiddling with the bow.
Inside the wrapping paper were two treasures: a poem she had written, and a faded photograph of a tiny baby boy taken 26 years ago.
The gift was for Bartley Stokes Sr., the man she had always loved, the man she hadn’t seen in 25 years. It was January 2004.
As Brenda got off the plane, she could see Bart. He was pacing the floor. She couldn’t hold back her tears. A circle of people watched every move and someone took pictures.
“It was the most awesome feeling,” Brenda said. “So much emotion.”
Brenda was in his arms again, at last. This part was good. It was easy.
Now came the hardest, the most difficult task: finding the baby boy whose photograph she had wrapped up in the gift. Their son.
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Photo GalleryFlared pants and disco were all the rage during the late 1970s when Brenda and Bart were high school sweethearts. Their song was “Make It With You” by Bread.
The couple met in the halls of Edmonds High School. She was walking in front of him.
“For me, I fell in love with her at first sight,” Bart said.
They were both 16 when they met in October. On Valentine’s Day he asked her to marry him. In March she found out she was pregnant.
“It was very confusing,” Brenda said. “A big shock.”
The couple didn’t decide on anything. They thought they’d keep their baby.
Then Brenda’s mother found out. Her parents decided that the couple would give the baby up for adoption.
Brenda was sent to a “school” in Burien where a young girl could have her baby, stay a while, then return to her previous life.
Bart drove down to see her for designated visits.
“It was very rough,” he said.
On Oct. 25, 1977, Brenda gave birth to a baby boy they named Michael Andrew. He was beautiful. She wanted to keep him.
Together, Bart and Brenda saw their son one time. They knew the pressures of parenthood were too much to handle. Brenda thought about the adoption.
“It was awful,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
Bart didn’t want to give up his son.
“I was holding him, kissing him,” Bart said.
He pushed the adoption papers away when it came time to sign.
He was about to feel the most incredible pain.
“I lost him,” he said. “Then I lost her.”
Brenda’s parents had always loved Bart. But they thought the best thing was to give up the baby and cool down the relationship.
The couple split up. Bart started drinking. He’d pull his car into her street and fall asleep. Brenda stayed away from him as much as possible.
Bart kept all the letters that Brenda sent him and even though they were no longer a couple he thought about her every day.
Bart married someone else in 1983 and had two children. He stayed married for five years. Brenda married in 1984 and had three children. She moved to California.
Brenda was always open about the son she gave up for adoption. She would tell everyone she met.
“It wasn’t a hidden secret,” Brenda said.
When Bart and Brenda’s son was 16, she went through a depression. She thought about where Michael Andrew might be, who he was now. Her husband suggested she sort out her issues, maybe get in touch with Bart. She struggled on.
People would ask Brenda why she didn’t want to find her son. She felt it wasn’t her right. Anyway, rejection would have torn her apart.
After 15 years of marriage, Brenda divorced her husband.
In fall 2001, Bart saw Brenda’s name on classmates.com, a Web site where former students can register with their class. Excited at the prospect of contacting her, Bart, a Boeing employee and a track and field coach at Edmonds-Woodway High School, sent off an e-mail.
No response.
Two years later when a friend told Bart that a former classmate had died, he tried reaching Brenda again.
This time she got the e-mail.
Brenda screamed.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
She wrote back.
“Well, Bart Stokes Sr.,” she said, “this is your blast from the past.”
The couple began e-mailing, then talking on the phone. They told each other about their lives. Finally, Bart told her.
“I loved you all my life,” he said. “I never stopped loving you.”
They talked about their son, the baby they had seen only once, and cried. Brenda told Bart she had never wanted to give up the baby.
They decided that Brenda would fly to Seattle. They would reunite and begin to search for their son.
Bart, who lives in Everett, contacted the King County Court House in Seattle. He needed the paperwork to start the search. Brenda filled out her paperwork and brought it from California.
A court-appointed mediator petitioned the courts to allow the sealed adoption file to be released. Once the mediator found out the child’s name, she could begin the search for him. It would take three to four weeks to petition the court.
The couple wrote a letter to their son on Jan. 13. It was included in the paperwork. They sent family pictures of Brenda and her children, and Bart with his.
The next day Bart went back to work. Brenda was spending the day with an old friend.
Brenda’s friend, who worked as a car wholesaler, had to make a stop at a dealership in Tacoma. Should she go in the afternoon or the morning? They decided to go in the afternoon.
They got to the dealership and Brenda had to use the bathroom.
“All of a sudden there was a girl there,” Brenda said.
Michelle Abbott had come from another building to use the bathroom. The two women struck up a conversation.
Brenda told the woman she was reuniting with her sweetheart and they were going to search for their child, a boy they had put up for adoption.
Michelle thought it must be quite exciting for Brenda and Bartley to be together again after all these years.
“How old is your son, 18, 19?” Abbott asked.
She asked when his birthday was.
Brenda told her: Oct. 25, 1977.
“Oh, my God,” Michelle said. “My aunt adopted a baby boy who was born on the same day.”
Brenda asked where he grew up.
Kent, Abbott said.
Brenda’s son had been born in Burien.
Tingling of Goosebumps spread across Brenda’s body. She knew only three boys were born that day in the same hospital.
Abbott called her mother to ask some questions. But the women didn’t know if giving out information was the right thing to do. It was all so sudden and other people were involved, including the boy and the parents he’d known for 26 years.
Abbott felt badly. She wanted to do the right thing for everyone. It had happened so quickly and out of the blue.
Stunned, Brenda left with a phone number, a hope and a prayer.
When she got home, she turned to Bart.
“I think we might have found Andy,” Brenda said.
She was scared.
The next three weeks were a whirlwind of trying to make contact again with Abbott, finding out information and finally realizing that through a chance pit stop at a car dealership Brenda had found a link to their son.
Six days after the meeting they talked to Abbott again. She was trying to decide whether to tell family members that she may have met Andy’s biological mother.
Brenda went back to California. Bart managed to get a photo of Andy from his high school year book. He sent it to Brenda.
Bart, anxious and amazed and everything in between, went to California. They had already made plans to move Brenda back to Snohomish County. He proposed and she said yes.
Andy grew up in Kent with wonderful parents and a brother 13 years his senior.
He had known for a few years that he was adopted and had asked various girlfriends if they would contact Oprah to help him find his mother.
He didn’t want to discuss it with his parents until the time was right.
But Andy didn’t know he had been found. Not until his girlfriend, Anna Wallace, said she had something to tell him. He might be getting a call.
“Andy,” she said, “your parents are looking for you.”
Andy called his father in Anacortes. He called Abbott too. He wanted her to tell him what his mother looked like; did she look like him? She asked if he would like to talk to his parents.
Brenda and Bart were sitting in the car in her carport in California crying about whether they would ever meet their son, if he would want to meet them. The cell phone rang.
It was the Abbott.
“I just talked to your son,” she said. “He’s waiting for your call.”
Bart dialed the number.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Bart said, “is this Andy?”
The young man’s voice sounded happy and excited.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Andy could hear his mother, Brenda, crying in the background.
Brenda and Bart went to Scottsdale, Ariz., to meet their son six days after they called him.
They peeked at each other around corners before they found themselves in each other’s arms for the first time in 26 years.
It was amazing to Andy that his parents had found him, but more incredible that they had just found each other again.
“I believe in miracles. And it shows. It’s a miracle,” Andy said. “It’s incredible.”
Andy learned about their families, his genes, and he looked at them a lot. He has Bart’s nose and chin. He has Brenda’s eyes.
“That was just amazing,” Andy said.
Since then there have been visits and plans and lots of support from Andy’s adoptive family and Brenda and Bartley’s families too.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle,” Andy said. “I’m complete now.”
The Stokes family will be complete this year when Brenda gives birth to Madisyn Rae. She and Bart are excited to raise a child together for the first time. Andy got to name the baby, his sister.
On Oct. 1, 2005, Brenda and Bart will get married. It will be the anniversary of their first date 28 years ago. Andy will walk his mother down the aisle.
“I still can’t believe it,” Brenda said. “Reality has hit a lot more. Before it was just crazy. People we were telling didn’t believe us.”
Bart had thought about Andy every day of his life. He has carried a baby picture of the son, the love of his life who he lost 26 years ago, with him always.
“I’ve been carrying this picture for 26 years,” Bart said holding a snapshot of a tiny baby boy. “I can’t believe it. He’s sitting here in my living room.”
Reporter Christina Harper: 425-339-3491 or harper@ heraldnet.com.
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