I Stumbled Upon a Headstone in the Woods and Saw My Childhood Photo on It – I Was Shocked When I Learned the Truth

We’d only lived in rural Maine for three weeks when our quiet new beginning cracked open.

While mushroom hunting behind our cottage, our dog suddenly growled—and my eight-year-old son, Ryan, disappeared. We found him laughing in a hidden clearing surrounded by headstones.

One stopped me cold.

Set into the stone was a ceramic photo of a little boy.

It was me.

Four years old. Same face. Same eyes. Same yellow shirt I barely remembered from childhood photos. Beneath it was a date:

January 29, 1984. My birthday.

That night, I told my wife what I’d never fully understood myself: I was adopted. My birth parents died in a fire. I’d been found outside the house with a note pinned to my shirt—Please take care of this boy. His name is Travis.

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