Searching for Roots

Several times a day since Friday, subconscious thoughts come bubbling to the surface. I find myself saying out loud, "Wow, I have a whole other family out there". It's still very surreal.

Being the introspective person that I am (sorry cuz- it's just who I am), I keep wondering about the timing. Why now?

In a way, I'm really glad that I didn't find my biological father while he was alive. I'm not sure I could have handled knowing him and then losing him to such a horrible violent death. Maybe this is why I was unable to ever find him. Maybe I was not meant to experience that because I'm awfully tender hearted. Who knows what that would have done to me.

I'll still have an opportunity to know him through the stories that I'll hear from his mother, brother and sisters and hopefully through my two half-sisters. My aunt told me that he had a really great laugh. For some reason, just that thought alone makes me smile. Laughter is one of my favorite sounds.

I'm so glad that I'll get to meet my grandmother before she's gone. 92 years old. Wow. I hope that gene pool runs strong.

Again, WOW. I have a whole other family out there.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I've always wanted this day to happen, I just never thought it would.

Rather than go through the long history of my search, I'll refer new readers back to these posts:

• Where I explain my search and find out that my biological father is dead


• Where I order his death certificate and talk about why I'm continuing the search


• Where I received the death certificate and found out that my biological father had committed suicide

There. Now you're pretty much caught up.

Since that time I've:

1. emailed the library system in the county where he lived and asked them to try and find his obituary. They really did try to be helpful and even looked in adjacent counties, but nothing.


2. emailed the library system from the town his family used lived to see if there was an obit there. No luck there either.


3. called the funeral home where he was taken after he died to see if anyone picked up his ashes. They said that they couldn't provide me with that information because it was confidential.

I then gave it a rest for a couple of months because I was discouraged.

Last night, I emailed Shelle, the wonderful woman who voluntarily gave me the information about my father after I'd signed up at registry.adoption.com. I asked her if she could help me find my half-siblings and any other living relatives of my b-father. She replied back asking me for information from my b-father's death certificate. Within an hour of giving her this information, she sent me a whole lot of info including this:

**************************************************************************
HEY!!!!!

Give your G'ma a call:
[grandmothers name]
[grandmother's address]
[grandmother's phone number]

AHHHH! Let me know as soon as you get ahold of her and what she says. Remember she is about 92 years old.
**************************************************************************

I picked up the phone and dialed the number. It was busy.

tap... tap... tap....

I dialed again about 15 minutes later. It was ringing. That's when I started shaking.

Then a woman answered.

Me: May I speak with [grandmother's name]?
Woman: She's sleeping right now, this is her daughter [aunt's name]. Can I help you?"
Me: Well, I'll bet you'll talk to me. I'm Lori, [father's name] first child.
Aunt: Praise Jesus!

Then she talked so fast and we talked so fast that I don't remember much about the conversation except a few sketchy details. I'll just bullet point the parts I can remember:

• I have two half-sisters who live in Florida. She gave me the name and address of one of them, she didn't have the address of the other.


• She wanted me to fly to see them TODAY.


• My grandmother is very active physically and mentally, although she fell a few weeks ago and broke her shoulder.


• She's wondered about me all these years and didn't know where to find me (my Dad adopted me and I took his name)

Then she said that she heard my grandmother shuffling around and was going to put her on the phone. I heard her say, "Mom, there is someone who wants to talk to you. You'd better sit down for this. She's a long lost loved one".

My grandmother got on the phone and I told her who I was. She was silent for a few moments (and I'm sure quite stunned!). Then we talked. This conversation is somewhat of a blur to me as well. She kept saying that she couldn't believe it. She wanted to know about me and how I was doing. I told her that I had two sons who share many of the same physical traits as my b-father and that broke her up a bit. I know there's more, but I think I was in a little bit of shock because I never thought this day would happen.

I told her that I'd fly out there as soon as I could. I have a huge project at work that I need to concentrate on (yeah, I know what *should* come first, but I've made a commitment). I think it'll probably be the first of September or the end of August.

My aunt got back on the phone and gave me her email address and said that as soon as she goes back home she'll pass on the information that I send her to the rest of the family. She just happened to be visiting when I called. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers. Before I hung up she told me to rest up before I get there because we have a lot to catch up on.

She's right about that!

I emailed her with pictures of me and my boys. I also gave her the URL for my wedding site (which includes a movie of my wedding). I've not given her my blog address. While I believe that this would be a good way to catch up with who I am and what I'm about, I'm not quite ready to be that 'exposed'.

I found an email address for the husband of one of my half-sisters by doing a search on the Internet and asked him to pass my information along so we can touch base. Their phone number is unlisted. Sending a letter via snail mail seems so, so, S-L-O-W! But if I don't hear something in the next couple of days, I'll do that. I do not have any information on my other half-sister. I'm sure it's just a matter of time...

I'll also send my grandmother pictures via snail mail. I'm sure she's quite curious about what we (me and my boys) look like.

This all seems so surreal right now.

Thank you Shelle. You've changed my life.

I imagined several scenarios that I might read as cause of death on my father's certificate of death. Suicide wasn't one of them. My father died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

My manager told me that I could leave work early today for the holiday weekend, and The Hubs had the day off. So after work we went to the grocery store to pick up items we'd need to host our dinner tomorrow. I asked The Hubs if he wouldn't mind if we stopped at the post office on our way home. Now I'm regretting that decision because he had to witness my reaction when I read those words on the certificate of death.

I shouldn't have opened the envelope until I was alone, but I'd waited so long for this. I ordered the death certificate when I found out about his death on February 23rd. I got a call from the office of vital statistics two weeks ago that they had mailed it to the wrong address, so they sent it again. I was at work at the time that they called and am very glad that I resisted the temptation to ask them what it said.

The Hubs just lost his dad on February 7th, and so I sit here feeling so guilty about my reaction. His dad was his best friend; I didn't know my father. Yet I burst into tears and I'm still struggling really hard to keep it in.

When I first looked at the certificate of death, all I saw was that the place of injury was a vehicle. For an instant I was relieved that he died in an auto accident. I've been afraid to read that he died of emphysema or liver failure; both being complications of a heriditary disorder that I have. Then I saw gunshot to the head. Decedent shot himself. It literally took my breath away and I felt as if someone had punched me in the throat.

Instantly my brain was flooded with the image of a very sad man; a man feeling so hopeless that he put a gun to his head and shot himself. My brain even took me down the road of the aftermath. I can't turn it off. I also can't turn off the guilt about not trying harder to find him. I'll never know what made him so sad.

My mind is so jumbled with emotions that I can't quite sort out. I'm feeling confused and very very sad. I'm sad that another human being, who happens to have given me half of my genes felt so hopeless that he decided to end his life.

I feel as if I was completely sideswiped by this. I honestly don't know anyone who could possibly understand how I feel right now. Who would be able to say that they've had this experience so they could explain why I'm so sad about a man I never knew? I'm in a very lonely place.

I'm one of those action oriented types. Give me a problem and watch me go! Don't make me plan it out. I don't need "no stinkin' plan" to get from point A to point B.

Yesterday I ordered my b-father's death certificate and I'm trying to locate his obituary. Since my original intent to find him not only about finding him, but also finding his family, the fact that he's no longer alive shouldn't stop my search.

His death certificate will give me information about how he died. It's not morbid curiosity, it's because of it being potentially due to complications from the same disorder I have. I'm hoping to see the words, "auto accident" on the death certificate, quite frankly. Sixty is awfully young.

I got one dead end on the obituary, but the county librarian said she'd research other papers for the week before and after the date of death, in case the information I have is wrong. The obituary is where I hope to find information about my b-siblings.

Since my father had such strong genes (I look just like him) I wonder what my sisters look like. I've always wondered what "me" looks like. There's also that whole debate about environment -vs- genes. Are they like me? My cousin, who I've just reunited with (shout out to kruzerone!) knew my father. My cousin is MUCH (snicker) older than me. He told me that my father was a very smart and determined type of man. His description of his personality sounds an awful lot like mine in regard to my business side. I don't know what kind of human being he was though. He sounded very passionate, but was he kind?

Here is a picture of my b-father and my mother on their wedding day. There is no denying I look like him. My oldest son has his identical face from the nose up. Same identical nose. It's kind of freaky actually, because I don't have that nose. I have his eyes, cheekbones, lips (or lack thereof) and I used to have those eyebrows. Ugggh.


I did briefly tell hubby about it, but played down how I felt about it. It was maybe a five minute conversation. That's very short considering all of the hours I've been thinking about it in the last two days. Really, after I figured out what it was that made me sad, it all made a whole lot more sense.

It's all about closure. Things I can no longer ask. I can't say that I loved this man, because I didn't even know him. I was curious about him, and very curious about his actions; or rather, lack of actions. I was curious as to whether what my mother has told me all along was true. Did he REALLY leave her when she became pregnant with me because he didn't want children? That would explain why he never made an effort to contact me. But it wouldn't explain why I have siblings.

So now I can only hope to find out these answers from any family that he may have left. Even if it is true, I don't think that finding out for sure is going to take any more of an emotional toll on me than it has over the past 45 years. It's something I've learned to believe. It would be really cool to find out that what I was lead to believe all these years was wrong. If not, well, no harm done.

There is family out there and I intend to find them. If they don't have the answers, that's fine. That's not why I'm searching.

Stay tuned...

I have been searching for my biological father off and on throughout my entire adult life. It wasn't because I needed a father, I already have a truly wonderful father. He's my Dad. It's easy to be a father, but I believe that being a dad is something special.

I think part of my reason of wanting to locate my father was out of curiosity, part of it was wanting to know the "real" story, not just my mother's side, and part of it was to track down my biological siblings and any surviving members of his family. I can tell by looking at pictures of my biological father that he has some pretty strong genes. I have several of his facial features, and his curly dark hair. I also recognize parts of him in both of my boys, which is rather strange since I've never met the man. I've only seen pictures. I'd like to see what the rest of "me" looks like. I am also curious about him. What was he like? Am I like him?

I've never hired a private investigator, but I've ordered plenty of those $80.00+ people searches that gave me lots of dead ends, so I'd give up for another year or so before trying again.

Last night, while The Hubs was out with da boys, I was bored and ran a google seach on my name just to see what's out there. I do that every once in a while because it cracks me up. My same-name counterparts are all very cool and successful people. One is a TV producer, one is a marathon runner, one is an attorney and one is married to someone with my brother's name. That was kind of weird to read. Yuck... love ya, bro, but yuck!

Last night's search lead me to a link to an adoption registry. My heart started pounding because I thought that maybe my father (or other family members) was looking for me. Turned out that it wasn't me, but I decided to go ahead and register there. Couldn't hurt.

Within two hours I got an email back from someone who does free records research. First of all, how cool is that? She looked up my information and told me lots of stuff about my mother and the marriage to my biological father. Then she told me that she found a death record that was the same name (first, middle and last) and the right age. I don't know his birthday, but it was the correct year. He died when he was 60, almost 13 years ago. I'm willing to bet that he died of the same disorder that I have, since it's genetic.

I don't know this man, yet I was overwhelmed with sadness when I read that email. I'm still sad, but the sadness is being trumped by curiosity about WHY I'm sad.

I wish this information had come at a different time, because I don't feel like it would be appropriate for me to be upset about this and share those feelings of sadness with my husband. He just lost his father; a man who he has known and was best friends with his entire life. To me, showing any grief over this person that I didn't know would seem to minimize what my husband is going through. Not to mention the fact that he died 13 years ago. I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around all of this.

I have a lot to mentally sort through and process. Why am I feeling this way about someone I didn't know? Where do I want to go from here? Do I just barge in on my siblings? I now know where he lived and when he died, so I could probably get an obituary giving me lots of information. What if they don't even know I exist? Does his wife (assuming he was married at the time of his death) know I exist? I don't believe in intruding where I'm not invited; invading people's privacy. This could potentially be a huge intrusion and invasion.

This information has also smacked me in the face with my own mortality. Sixty years is not very old.

wow.