SPANISH FORT — Forty-six years ago, Sharon Brammer put her newborn daughter up for adoption and prayed the family who welcomed her would give the child the life she deserved.

They did.

Today, Brammer has a rekindled relationship with the daughter she never forgot and always loved, and it all started with a registered letter.

“It was a Tuesday, 11:20 a.m.,” Brammer said, amazed herself at the accuracy with which she remembers that 2009 morning’s events.

When she finally worked up the nerve to slide the letter from the envelope, Brammer glimpsed the first paragraph and lost her breath.

 “I have always loved you … My birth name was Melissa Denise Whitley, a beautiful name that I learned this week after 44 years of wanting to know. I believe you are my natural mother,” read the letter from a woman in Michigan named Sandra Snow.

Brammer, who was only 14 when the baby was born, said she had wondered for “years and years” what had happened to the tiny daughter she’d held for only three days at the Salvation Army’s Birmingham home for unwed mothers in September 1964.

Because of the circumstances, Brammer said the only people outside her family who knew about the child’s existence were her husband, Paul Brammer, and one best friend.

“I never even told my son. I just didn’t see any reason,” she said.

Alabama adoption records were sealed until two years ago, Brammer said, and the one attempt she made to locate her daughter hit an immediate brick wall.

“I had given up,” she said.

Snow had better luck, however, when she and her husband, Jonathan, hired a Los Angeles-based locator.

“She found me within 30 minutes,” Brammer said, marveling at how quickly the professional service not only tracked her down but convinced Brammer’s sister in Alexander City, Ala., to “give up” her Spanish Fort location and contact information on the premise of an upcoming high school reunion.

Brammer said she wanted desperately to keep reading the letter, but she was so shaken she called her husband of 37 years to come to her office, while the closely knit staff at the medical clinic that serves Mobile’s homeless puzzled over her condition.

“The thing I couldn’t do alone was look at her picture. It was something I had wondered for so many years, but I just couldn’t do it by myself,” she said, choking back tears of the memory.

In the letter signed “With love and respect, Sandra,” Snow closed simply with, “Thank you, Sharon, for giving me a good life. You are brave and courageous, and I consider part of my personal strength and toughness to be rooted in our shared experience, you as the mother, and me as the child.”

By this time it was the lunch hour, and Brammer said she stared at Snow’s contact numbers, knowing her daughter had assumed it would take her time to consider calling.

After two hours, however, Brammer said the anticipation had gotten the best of her and she told her staff she had to go home to tend to a personal matter.

“I called her husband first. I wanted her to know I was going to call, and I wanted him to be there with her when I called.

Six weeks later, mother and daughter reunited in Pensacola on the Fourth of July, and Brammer said it’s as if the pause button had been turned off. In fact, the pair speak by phone every day, and the entire family — including her grandchildren, 10-year-old Lochlyn and 6-year-old Siri — will make the trek to Spanish Fort the week before Christmas.

On the eve of her first visit with Snow, Brammer said she received a mind-blowing surprise.

“Her mother sent me a picture album she put together to give me an idea of what her life had been like. It started with the day they got her and moved all the way through school, prom, college — things I never dreamed I would know,” she said.

At the same time, Brammer said Snow’s birth actually set the course for the future nurse practitioner’s life.

“The day she was born, I promised God I would do anything I could to put my life to work for Him in a meaningful way. It led me down a path that has been an incredible profession that has brought me the greatest pain and joy you could possibly imagine. But getting to know Sandra, I just can’t describe with the right words what that has been like. Getting to know her after all this time has been an amazing gift,” Brammer said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: November is National Adoption Month. This three-part series

examines the experiences of a woman who wondered for 45 years if the decision she made as a child herself resulted in the outcome she intended for her daughter.

Coming in the Nov. 26 edition of The Bulletin: Meet Sandra Snow and learn  about her quest to find  the woman who not only gave her life but  set its course with a  simple request.