However, if I were to bet on it, that clock will start ticking backward again now that we really have seemed to have severed any connection.
There are two significant meetings, or first's, if you will. The first first was one I actually met him in 1992, the other was when I saw him with his family for the first time in 2008.
I don't remember much of the first encounter and most of what I remember is because at one point during all the turmoil we would go through together later, my dad actually reminded me of all our encounters. Somehow I had blacked out (or blocked out) all these memories. When my dad retold them to me, it was as if the memories would come back about 5 minutes before he would tell them to me. I don't know if that makes sense. It's as if someone is describing a person so that you can make a sketch of it, only seconds before they tell you the guy had a mustache, you see it.
The idea that these memories were in my brain but not memories I could pull up on command was very unnerving. What else had I blanked out? Am I now remembering the truth, or some conjured up story? How did I forget?
Perhaps it was too painful a memory so I choose to lock it away. Or perhaps, and I think this is more likely, I just choose to not think about it, so the memory vanished. My dad met me, and than got in his car and drove back to his life as if I didn't exist. That's not something a young person wants to think about too much.
So, enough with the psychobabble, here is how I came to meet my dad....
After meeting with my grandmother in the park, I learned what state my father lived in. With that information I had a friend with connections run a drivers license search and a match was returned with the name and what I guessed would be the age of my father. I didn't get to see his license, which of course was disappointing since I had assumed I would know my dad when I saw him. However, I had his address now, I was so close.
Also, this being 1992 and although the Internet existed I sure the hell didn't know what it was. So the library was a place I spent a lot of time at. The bigger libraries had phone books of everywhere, so In the labyrinth of the Salt Lake library I found the phone book for the area I needed and as simple as opening a book, there was the phone number for the person who I thought might be my dad.
I was very hesitant. I had spent probably less than 4 hours of detective work to find my dad. Recalling the steps it took to find him I remembered that most of the time it took to get this far was time spent calling every private investigator in the yellow pages begging for help. After calling a dozen or so private investigators and feeling completely dejected one eventually felt sorry for me and gave me the tip to search the LDS missionary indices at the main church building in downtown SLC. That research is what led me to my grandmother. Within a few hours on the phone to P.I.s, less than 15 minutes in the church records building, a lunch with my grandmother, a favor from a friend and now another 15 minutes at the library and I had my dad's phone number clutched in my hand. Could it really have been that easy?
Why hadn't my mother ever done this? What about the state authorities, certainly with those resources they could have found him. How could I have located him so quickly with so few resources? My father would later claim this was because he wasn't hiding and he would later insinuate that had anyone tried to look for him, they would have found him so obviously this indicates he was helpless in the matter. But the truth is, the state did find him but they didn't have the ability to force him to address paternity. And my maternal grandparent did try to make contact with his wife at the time. But my fathers wife didn't want to believe that I could have been his child so she went along with his stories and the state can't force someone to be a dad if they don't want to be.
After a few days or weeks, I really can't remember how much time passed,I finally called the number from the phone book. I decided to play it cool, like I had called the number a million times. So when I called, I simply said, "yeah, is ______ around?"
"No, he's not here" replied the casual voice on the other end. I wondered if this was a sibling of mine and strained to get some glimmer of a clue what life was like on the end of the telephone line.
"Do you know where I can reach him at?" Playing as cool as I could while my fingers trembled so much that I could barely hold the phone still.
"Yeah,he's at his parents house" was the reply.
"That's great, I'll call him there."
"Do you need the number" the stranger offered.
"Thanks but I already have it" I couldn't have planned it better, now I was certain the caller on the other end wouldn't ever suspect a thing from me. To this day, I wonder which one of my siblings it might have been.
I knew that if I didn't call the number for my dad's parents home right that second I would never get the nerve again. So I called and again playing it as cool as a cucumber I asked, "is _______ around"
"Hold on I'll get him for you" was the kind voice on the other end.
The moment was at hand. What was I supposed to say? Will he know it is me? Will he deny me? Will he tell me to go to hell?
My dad answered the phone in his usually matter. I know today what that usual matter is, but back in 1992, I had no clue. So when he answered the phone, "what do you want?" I just naturally assumed my cool as a cucumber identity had been discovered and now here was this gruff voice just being as blunt as one could possibly be.
So I replied back with the only answer that made any sense, "I want to meet you" I said.
It is so fascinating to me to tell you this story, even if there is no "you" out there. Even if the only person who ever reads my story is me, as I mentioned above these memories come back to me with clarity as if the picture is being painted before the brush touches the page. How accurate the memories are I have no idea.
During the rest of the conversation we decided when and where to meet. It would be at the food court in a local mall. I didn't ask what he'd be wearing and he didn't ask what I would be wearing. I don't think he even ever asked my name. One has to assume that for this man, hearing a young woman call him to ask him if he wanted to meet her, why he must have know it was his 19 year old daughter that he'd never seen or heard before. I wondered if his parents would have asked him what the phone call was all about. I wondered of he turned white as a ghost when he heard my voice. Again, with the way he answered the phone, I assumed he knew it was me. I assumed my grandmother whom I had already met had recognized my voice and must have said "it's her" with that look in her eye that every mother has. Now that years have gone by, and now that I know this is how he answers the phone, I now assume that he too played coolio the cucumber and never let on to his parents on anyone else who exactly it was that had just called him out of the blue.
It is with this memory that my heart goes out to his wife. I know as a wife myself how important it is to share moments with my husband. I can't imagine how shut out she must have felt during this time, when he was meeting his daughter and couldn't confide in her what that experience was like. This is why cheating is so horrible, it robs you of the companionship of your best friend. But that's a topic for a different post.
So now I'm at the food court at the agreed upon mall on the agreed upon date at the agreed upon time. With my heart pounding so loud I can't hear my own thoughts I nervously scan the crowd. Making this search difficult was that my expectations had been set. You see my mother had dated a number of gentleman in my life and most of them were not model citizens. To be fair to my mother, we lived in Utah and at the time if you weren't a member of the church, you probably weren't considered a model citizen and while I knew my father was a returned missionary the expectation of what my father would be like was closer to a drinker hobo than a clean cut Mormon with a newly pressed shirt and tie.
I scanned the crowd for and stopped at every single man over age 40. "Please not him" I would think as I scanned the number of strange looking men. For those of you who have never known your birth parents, this is a procedure us lost kids do in every public setting, always wondering, "could that stranger over there be my father/mother?" For those of you lucky enough to know both you mum and your pa, humor me and go to any public setting, look around and pick a father, you'll find yourself saying "please not that guy" too.
My scanning and prayer ritual went on for what seems an eternity. Deciding to make myself busy, I choose to stand in line for a hot dog at the hot-dog-on-a-stick place, I still love their deep fried cheese thingies. As I'm standing in line, I feel the prescience of someone behind me and I turn around to look into blue eyes. There he was and I knew it, just as he knew it.
And I don't remember anything else. I know I didn't ask him if he was my dad. We just talked, but I don't know how long it was or what it was about? I remember at some point he met my husband and children (at age 19, I had a 2 year old son and two step-children half my age, but that's for an entirely different blog some day). I know we exchanged a number of letters, most of which I destroyed after one of many future events were he would refuse to tell his family about me. The next 16 years are so much of a blur. I never referred to him by anything other than his name and didn't think of him as a father. When others asked about my dad I would still answer I didn't know who my dad was and that it might be this one guy I had met but I wasn't sure.
My dad never said he was my father, only that he would be whatever I wanted him to be. That is why the time I saw him after his confession, and after he actually said he was my father is really more of the first time I met my dad.
This guy that I met in 1992, he was just some random dude.
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