Finding my voice...

With the reconciliation with my dad comes the every pressing question of should I friend him on Facebook.

I think of Facebook the way the Justin's Dad from Shitmydadsays  says about weddings.

"Invite them. A wedding is a loaded gun. Don't be the asshole staring down the barrel asking which button makes the boom noise."

So with that I sent my dad a Facebook invite.  And we had some back and forths on the whole merits of this course of actions.   And with that, I felt like I found my voice.  This is what I told him.

Hello Dad,

The "melt-down" came when a post was made about the delicate issue of finding a birth parent.   So to that effect, I would offer that if you want to offer advice to someone that has struggled with the issue of whether or not to find a birth parent, you ask someone that had to deal with that issue on a very personal level how they feel about it.  

Please don't criticize how I handle things that cause me to feel un-loved, criticized or otherwise ostracized.   I have been my worst critic in this regard and I will not be made to feel bad again for having a negative emotion to an incredibly taxing situation.   

I know it's incredibly difficult to understand my perspective and I don't expect you to.  I do need the freedom to respond in the most appropriate matter I have at my disposal at that time.   I can assure you that my response will at times be less than a complete transference of the principles of love, and I can also assure you that beyond that I will keep trying.   It is the fact that I keep trying that I keep making mistakes.  I could choose to never respond, never reach out and instead throw myself into my work, home repair, parenting, charitable events or a million other distractions.  

If this position causes you to feel uncomfortable "friending" me on Facebook, I completely appreciate that and there will be no bad feelings because of it.    

I will also offer that one area I have been struggling with is the holidays.  I was very hurt last Christmas.  I tried very hard to show love at a time of year that is supposed to be about love and with the exception of a just a few, I felt very little reciprocated while posts of loved ones floated across the screen of fun times at Dad's house playing Christmas games.   

What am I to do?  Ask others to downplay their joy?  Whine about not being included?  Every option except to just pretend I'm invincible to the effects of isolation only subject me to ridicule for not being perfect or subject those I love to feel bad about something they have no control over. 

This year, I will hide from Christmas.  I will suspend my Facebook account Mid-November.  And with the exception for those that thought of me last Christmas, I will not buy gifts or send cards.  When 2014 rolls in, I will return to trying to find my place in the family but I just can't do that at Christmas time. 

So with these disclosures that I am not perfect and that Facebook is a barbed-wire web of communications and I will come and go on that forum as I feel I need to;  I cannot do anything but to offer a friend request and let the receiver decide if they are willing to be part of someone's life that is not perfect.   

Again, no hard feelings either way.  I'm just doing what I feel I need to do and I understand that you are doing the same in return. 

With love,"

I hope the roar that I have found doesn't leave me.   

The e-mail that preceded my Father's final good-bye

Yesterday I posted my father's final letter to me, today I will post the email that caused him to lash out so.  There are a few in-between emails, but the this email from me to him, and his return letter with his award seem to be the most comprehensive in telling the story.

"My children are free to interact with you anyway they wish.  They are children of broken homes. They can handle a little mud slinging between baldy behaving adults.   Do you think I would encourage them to break ties with anyone because of my petty arguments?  If you have a concern regarding my children, you need to not assume anything and ask them directly why they have or have not chosen to so something. Or shall I follow your logic and blame you for ______ un-friending me?   

Is sure is interesting that one day I send you an invite to my Green Housing page and the next day you mock environmentalists in one of your group think emails.  Coincidence? Perhaps.

Now I am to believe that there are 40 young people seeking heartfelt advice from you on whether or not to pursue finding a parent and opening themselves up for all sorts of heartache, the possibility of being rejected again, and/or possibly finding a love they cannot imagine and with the knowledge and insight you have had and instead you put all those amazing lessons and perspectives aside and choose to give them the advice to not expect Demi-gods for parents as a board-cast message on Facebook?You the man of 1 million words summed it all up with that?

I am sorry, I cannot go where you are asking me to go.  But if what you are saying is true, than it is all the better for you to post your advice and thoughts freely without the worry of how I might perceive such good hearted intentions.  Your message will be all the better if your audience is all of the same opinion and there really is no point in having me in the audience.  And if you have ever read my posts you will already know its a very catered message. 

I really don't wish you any harm, any bad thoughts, any extra weight on an already heavy heart.  I wish we could run through the fields of gold again and love and hope that I might somehow be able to join you at a Christmas dinner (or maybe that was only my hope).   I understand now the impossibilities of my childhood fantasies and I get it.  

And I get that it's not personal.  You and yours have customs I don't understand, you pull names out of hats and buy each other gifts and most likely never call each other to say happy birthday or merry Christmas or God bless at Easter.  And I get for five years now I have waited and hoped to be included in activities that are not your activists but rather they are [your wife's] activities and I really really do get it.  

But here's the catch, I can't imagine how you get it. How are you okay with the way things are? Now I don't fault you for being okay with it, but I just don't see you as being fatherly if you are cable of carrying on like you do.  I haven't understood since that cruise you took in 2008.  And I know it wasn't your cruise, it was [your wife's] and I get the look of confusion in everyone's eyes as I strain to validate my complaint.  I don't belong on [your wife's] cruise, not than and not now and not ever. But again here is the catch, why do you go?   If [my husband] bought tickets to a cruise and everyone except one of my children were invited, I would be confused and hurt that all my kids weren't invited. And I wouldn't deny him passage or anyone else for that matter, but there's just no way I could go. And that is the difference between you and me.   

You see, I honestly thought after you told everyone about me that YOU would start including me.  

So tell me the truth, if it was [your favorite daughter] who was excluded, would you go?  

Now the cruise is long gone and its not worth talking about except for the sake that I should have known way back then that for you and mostly for everyone else that nothing would change.  Your entire family wants to so dearly to hold on to traditions that pre-date my arrival into the family and there just noway meaningful change will ever happen without the consensus of the group. 

Now to clarify, I'm not angry about this, but you can't have it both ways. Either I'm your daughter in every sense of the way or I am not.  The same is true for my role as a sister, I cannot do the half-thing, blame it [on my maternal sister] if you must, she forbade me to use the word half since as long as I can remember.  

Now for the record, I'm not saying good-bye, I gave up trying to say god-bye a long time ago.  

If it helps you to understand, I fell apart when I read your words.  I had out of state clients in town and with this crazy market I was on about day 17 of not having a day off with the working day lasting from dawn until dusk and no I don't get to have a quiet lunch break where I can collect my thoughts and regroup.  I just had to find a home for this family before they left town on Friday, and I had to do this when I'm exhausted in a market that is a fierce as you can possibly imagine and I am supposed to do it with a smile on my face.  And than I read your post and its like a wreaking ball on a fragile building.  (This analogy is not meant to imply I am over-sensitive) 

I have asked you not to email me because I check my email as part of my job and it's too much to have little bombs of nasty comments going off in my email.  I use Facebook for work and if you ever liked my fan pages or talked to [a family member] about how I use Facebook you would understand its not all fun and games for me, I actually use it as a tool and I'm very good at turning my efforts on Facebook into money to support my family.  

Our paths will cross again and again, I truly hope above all things that when they do cross it might be a pleasant passing where each person wishes the best for the other without impossible expectations on each other.

That being said, the situation is impossible, and my only regret is my inability to have accepted that as fact years and years ago."

What I did that I regret most when I was introduced to my bio dad's family

It was a Monday morning, when my dad finally confessed to my paternal siblings.  His confession left me stunned, confused, excited, nauseous, dizzy, etc. etc.

I knew after I made the call to my half-brother the prior Tuesday that the truth would be forthcoming, when I told my dad that Thursday that I had called my brother and that he should be aware that his dirty secret was out, I had expectations.

I expected he and my brother would communicate, have a chat about how to move forward and how to tell the others.  Or at least one of them would call me that weekend to either learn more about me or discuss the method and timing of telling the others.

But the weekend came and went without any event.  I anxiously checked my phone and my computer for any sign of communication from either of them.  I checked my spam folders, re-read emails and dialed my own phone just to make sure it was working.  Needless to say it was a very long weekend.

Than Monday morning came and I felt so dejected, unresolved, tired, and worn out.  I had no plan going forward.  My father had seven other biological children that I knew about, I had only called one.  I was pretty certain at that time, I wouldn't have it in me to call another sibling.  Words cannot explain the terror and resolve it took to call my brother and say, "hi, I think I'm your half-sister."

I went to work and tried to pretend I was okay.  At about 10 a.m., I saw an email titled, "What have I done" and my heart jumped out of my chest.  I couldn't even read the words, I saw a mix of letters and paragraphs swirling around and around on the computer screen.   I wanted to throw up, I wanted to cry, I wanted to jump with joy.

I focused over and over and over again on the recipient list.  I counted the names; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN.  There were TEN names on the list.  I knew of 7, there was an extra 3. 

Who were these people, what did they look like?  Were they too in front of their computers?  Why did my dad send an email?  Are they happy to have a sister? Does it say I'm their sister?  Will they accept me? What will my life be like now?  What about my children and their children? What will my dad's wife do?

Excitement was probably the most prominent emotion, but as I scrambled to read the email with all the rambling paragraphs about Christ and the Garden of Gethesemane and my dad's ego and pride all splayed out that finally about three quarters of the way down there it was.  And this is what it said.

"You have a half-sister by my wrong doing, her name is Jana, her number is 800-XXX-XXXX"

THAT'S IT?

How will they know me? What will they expect?  And while I understand the underlying shame of my father's confessions, a sadness filled my heart as I thought to myself, "well, that is my birth announcement"  35 years late without any mention of love or pride for me as a person, just a sadness and sense of shame that I existed.

Well, without thinking and in my eagerness, I composed my own email about me, about my children, about my challenges and triumphs in life, about my pets, about my job, about everything and I hit "reply all"

Now, I regret a lot of things about this action of mine.  What I didn't realize than, is that a lot of my siblings didn't have smart phones or computers in front of them like I did.  I assumed they all got my dad's confession in real time, I had no idea that when they got home later that day, they would see my email first and my dad's second because for reasons only God knows, that is how emails are organized?  I regret that I didn't recognize that they would need some time to digest the email from their father.  I regret that their mother had no idea that this is how they would be told.  But these reasons are not why I'm sharing this story.

Mostly I regret that I shared my personal story with persons who didn't deserve to know about me.

Now that sounds kinda mean, but it is true.  Those siblings that have chosen not to accept me will tell you it's because of something I did or said, but I don't buy it.  There are a handful of siblings that have taken the position since day one that I'm not anything more than "a physical representation of a lie" and that I don't belong in their family and I really regret that they know anything about me.   Not that they know I exist, but that they know my personal stuggles. 

I was so eager to tell them my story and to hear their's I just assumed it would be reciprocal.  But some of them didn't want to know, didn't want to care.  

I have since learned that if someone doesn't ask about you, don't volunteer.  (ironic for a blogger to post this, however, if  you didn't want to read my thoughts, you wouldn't have made it this far, so obviously you are interested.)  I have learned that my story is valuable and I don't want to give it to anyone that isn't interested in paying me for my story, and the payment I expect is time and consideration.

Over the course of time, I told my dad more and more about myself.  When I reflect back, he never once asked about my life, ever.  I wanted him to know the heartache I endured because of his absence, somehow I thought this would make things a little better for me.  To face my tormentor and look him in the eye and say, "this happened because of your actions".   I have also learned that while my life would have been different had he been there, I still would have had heartache so perhaps while his abandonment was a horrible event that I had to learn to get beyond, it wasn't necessarily a cause and effect of all my other woes.

But more than that, I cherish my woes.  They are uniquely my own story.  Things that have happened and things I have overcome are my only trophies, ribbons and awards for a life well lived, even if those trophies, ribbons and awards are only in my mind.   At this point in time, my father doesn't deserve to know these stories.

My paternal grandfather is a WWII hero, a paratrooper that faught and survived some of the most historical battles in all of US history.  My father was content with denying me this heritage.    I only wish I would have denied him the story of me.

Again, for those of you out there with illegitimate parents, you are valuable, you are cherished and your life is worth knowing about, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  I hope you are smarter than me and save your story for those who deserve it, those who will cherish it and for those that love you as a person.

Growing Up Fatherless

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

I grew up not knowing who my father was or anything about him. I didn't even learn his name until I was 19 years old. When I found him, he kept me a secret from his 7 other biological children by convincing me that all I would ever mean to them would be heartbreak. I broke though that horrible message and found a love I never dreamed of, this is that story in Haiku Deck fashion.

The Haiku story is meant to be simple.  There are many layers of complexity in my story.  There have been many different responses by my half-siblings; from being completely ignored, to be called a liar and compared to a thief in the night, to being loved, to being miss-understood and so on and so on.

This Haiku isn't meant to diminish the love of some of my other sisters, it's just that the actions of one sister have stood out and in choosing to wanting to end this Haiku Deck on a positive note, I choose to share her actions as a beacon of hope for other kids born to illegitimate parents. 

My story was filled with heartache, as yours may or may not be.  But if you feel it's worth the risk, than there is hope that you can be accepted and loved by a biological family member out there who doesn't know you exist yet. 

Learning to be a little braver

I have a story to tell.  It's the story of finding my biological father and the 16 year quest to encourage him to tell his family about me.

I have been reluctant to tell my story because regardless of what I tell myself, I am ashamed of the story.  I'm embarrassed that I don't come from a quote-unquote "Good Family".  I'm sorry for my parents that I was conceived.  I'm sad that my birth announcement, shared months after my 35th birthday, was a regretful confession of a fallen man. I feel bad for my mother for how lonely it all must have been on the day I was born. And I'm angry for being tasked with the shame of my parents extra martial affair.

I am telling my story because all of othe feelings above are wrong.  And it's time I embraced my roots and gave permission for others unlucky enough like me to be "illegitimate" persons  to stand and say, I matter and I am not ashamed for being born.

My story is worth telling because it is about love, mistakes, acceptance and forgiveness.  I'm going to to do my best and be honest with you about my mistakes and my shortcomings and I am going to do my best to tell you about the ways I was received and rejected by my members of my paternal family and do my best to stay true to loving principles at the same time.

My paternal half brother once said to me, "You need to understand how difficult it is to see your face, the living representation of a lie."

At the time those words were spoken, I was too stunned and hurt to even know what to say. I've reflected a lot about those words and my very being.  What I have come to realize is that my face isn't the representation of a lie at all, but rather a representation of a truth.  Cogito Ergo sum.