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They'd been working together for months, not knowing they shared a deeper connection.

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Melissa Meely dropped into a chair in front of her manager's cherry veneer desk. "I don't know how people with kids can do this job," the 25-year-old radio advertising sales rep said.
Her boss, Laurie Thompson, had heard such self-doubt before. Her six salespeople at Connoisseur Media in Erie, Pennsylvania, often popped into her office just before quitting time to vent frustrations about a tough day of cold-calling. On this Wednesday in June 2006, as the late-afternoon sun cast rays of light through a wall-length window, it was Melissa (Missi to her friends) who led the caravan into Laurie's office.

Laurie nodded. She didn't have children, devoting herself instead to a sales career, running marathons, cycling, sailing and spending time with Chuck, her husband of nearly 20 years.

"I don't think I'll ever have kids, though that would really disappoint my parents," Missi said.

"Why, because you're an only?" Laurie asked.

Missi said her parents would be disappointed because they wanted grandkids. Then she added almost as an afterthought, "I was adopted."

From the time she was tiny, Missi knew she was adopted. Doug and Sandy Meely were always open with their daughter about where she came from. "You weren't had, you were chosen," Doug would tell her.

After they were married in October 1972, Doug and Sandy learned they were unable to conceive. But they longed for a family. So they sought out an adoption agency, went through the screening process, put their name on the list and waited for five long years. Finally, in May 1981, they brought home a five-week-old girl with a full head of brown hair and deep brown eyes. They called her Melissa Jean.

All Doug and Sandy knew about her background was typed on two sheets of white paper provided by the adoption agency. Melissa was born April 14, 1981, to a 16-year-old girl who played saxophone in the high school band, loved horses and was described as intelligent, decisive and sensitive. The infant's father was 18 and had brown hair and brown eyes, just like his daughter. He also had intense allergies, something he passed on to Missi.

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“ Give your heart to your work, but be a little more stingy with your time. Decide how many hours a week is reasonable to get your work done, add 10 percent in case you're wrong, then walk away. ”

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Employed at a Mexican restaurant in my hometown of Murfreesboro, Tenn., I was taking orders at the drive-up window. "Let me have a strawberry milkshake," one woman said through the microphone.

"I'm sorry, but we don't sell milkshakes here," I replied. "McDonald's next door sells them if you'd really like one." "Oh," said the woman, laughing at her mistake.

"No, that's okay. Since I'm already here, just give me a Happy Meal."

-- Michael Griffith