She found her birth family through an Inquirer article. Now, she’s written her own story

Whenever I’m asked to speak to groups about journalism and my experiences in this wacky profession, I inevitability get the question: “What’s your favorite story you’ve ever written?”

It’s a hard one to answer. I’ve written thousands of stories in my career, and hundreds of those stories have mattered to me for a hundred different reasons.

But after 2021, that question wasn’t hard anymore. That’s the year I met Cheryl Edwards, who reminded me not only of the power of journalism, but also of telling your own story.

Now Edwards has come full circle and written her own story in her recently released book, The Coldest Summer Ever, copies of which she’ll be signing at Black and Nobel bookstore in South Philly this weekend.

In February 2021, Edwards, now 56 and living in Maryland, sent a message to The Inquirer’s Instagram account, saying she’d been abandoned at birth in West Philly in 1967 and wanted to share her story.

“When I initially reached out, I honestly thought I’d never get a response,” Edwards said last week. “I thought it was too insignificant and too far in the past for it to be addressed.”

I don’t know why her message was forwarded to me, but I’d like to think that every story comes into my life for a reason. Over the next several months, Edwards and I talked for hours on end, often sobbing together as she talked about her life, hopes, and dreams.

According to articles from 1967, on Aug. 14 of that year, a newborn was found inside a pillowcase hidden under a dresser in a vacant apartment of a West Philly rowhouse. Through a series of unfathomable events, the people who found the pillowcase thought there was a chicken in it, and without ever looking inside, one man put it in the trash behind the house.

When another resident saw this, she went to investigate and discovered Edwards. Police were called, but Edwards’ parents were never found.

As an infant, she was taken in by the late Ernest Lee Sr. and Susan Edwards of Overbrook, who adopted her and provided a loving home.

Edwards was private about her past, but one day someone very close to her used her story against her in an argument by asking, “Do you even know who your parents are?”

After receiving counseling, Edwards decided to share her story with The Inquirer to reclaim it as her own, so it could never be used against her again.

We both desperately hoped an article would lead Edwards to her birth family, but the odds seemed so impossible neither of us dared to speak it out loud.

My story published on June 14, 2021. That evening, a woman named Shelly Ward-Moore emailed me and said she believed Edwards was her first cousin. Over the course of the next day, other members of Ward-Moore’s family contacted me, sharing details of Edwards’ first day they couldn’t otherwise have known.

Making the call to Edwards to tell her we may have found her birth family was nerve-wracking. Nothing can prepare you to be the bearer of such life-altering news, or the receiver of it.

We sobbed and agreed we’d temper our expectations until DNA tests came back. But within days, Edwards was on the phone with Ward-Moore and her relatives. By the next month, she was attending a family barbecue.

That August, DNA testing confirmed Edwards had found her biological family, whom she remains close with to this day.

“Never in a million years did I think it would happen,” she said. “It makes me feel welcome and included because, honestly, they didn’t have to embrace me.”

Edwards learned she had a half-brother, whom she met, and that her birth mother was living in a nursing home in North Carolina but was unable to speak due to a medical condition.

On Dec. 3, 2021, Edwards and Ward-Moore traveled to that nursing home, where Edwards met her mother for the first time. Though unable to speak, when Ward-More asked the woman if she knew who Edwards was, she nodded her head yes, pointed to herself, and then to her stomach to acknowledge that she was her child.

When Edwards told me that story, I knew it had to be written, but I also knew I was no longer the best person to write it — she was. And so she did, in a beautiful first-person piece for The Inquirer.

I was incredibly proud of Edwards for writing that story, and I’m even more proud of her for writing her first book, The Coldest Summer Ever, about the journey that led her to her birth family. At 90 pages, it’s a quick but powerful read about identity, perseverance, and forgiveness.

“I wanted to put my experience into writing so other people who may have experienced it or are currently on a search may have some hope,” said Edwards, who works as an executive assistant.

In the years since Edwards found her family, her mother and half-brother have both died of medical complications.

“As blessed as I felt, I also felt robbed because I didn’t get more time with them,” she said.

Edwards dedicated her book to them, her adopted parents, her son, and, to my surprise, me.

But it’s me who should be thanking Edwards. As I wrote in my foreword for her book, “Cheryl’s story is not only one of the most important stories I’ve ever worked on in my career, but also one of the most incredible things I have ever been a part of in my entire life.”

I believe that the stories we tell as journalists become a part of our own stories. I couldn’t be more grateful that Edwards is now a part of my story, and I am a small part of hers.

For more information or to purchase Edwards’ book, email TheColdestSummerEver23@gmail.com. Edwards will be doing a book signing from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Black and Nobel, 422 South St., Philadelphia.