A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

The Quaker Meeting Hall is busier than I expect, with men and women crowded onto a long bench, waiting their turn to drop off letters or ask after missing relatives. A few women cry as they leave the small office at the back. I whisper to Addy that I never knew so many families had been separated, and she tells me she’s only seen a handful come off the freedmen’s boats whole. Listening to her, I think about how much easier my own separation is. I miss Dad, but at least I know exactly where he is and that he’s safe.

A kind-looking man with curly blond hair waves us forward and introduces himself as Mr. Cooper. He reads Addy’s letter in silence, and when he finally looks up, his face is serious but gentle, and he asks which of us is Addy. Her answer comes out smaller than I’ve ever heard her sound.

Mr. Cooper promises to pass the letter along and warns that answers take time, though he’s seen good things happen before, like the man who once walked 600 miles before finally finding his family again. I’m stunned, thinking of how our car ride from Tennessee to Florida covers roughly that same distance and still takes nine hours. Walking it would take years. Addy declares that her Poppa would walk 600 miles and further if that’s what it took, and Mr. Cooper laughs and tells us nothing can separate a family’s love before asking us to check back with him in a few weeks.

Those words stay with me as we leave the hall. Addy practically dances along the sidewalk, buoyed up by Mr. Cooper’s story, but all I can think about is my own family, separated from me not by 600 miles but by more than 150 years. My grade, my punishment, none of it matters half as much as just getting home again. My fingers curl around Grandpa’s coin in my pocket, and before I can stop myself, I blurt out that I have to find my family too.

Addy stops walking and turns to face me, telling me simply that of course I do, that my heart is where my family is. My voice wavers when I try to explain that my family has a meeting place too, just not one in Philadelphia, and that I need to keep going until I find it. Addy looks surprised for only a second before she nods and takes my hand, telling me she knows I’ll find them.

I tell her I’ll never forget everything she and Mrs. Walker have done for me, and I mean every word of it. Addy insists she never would have gotten that letter written without my help, though I remind her she would have managed just fine on her own. She hugs me tight and tells me we don’t need luck, we have hope. I hug her back and whisper that I’ll miss her, holding on for one more second before I finally let go and tell her goodbye, my hand finding its way back to the coin in my pocket as I turn toward home.