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 BJ 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.