Life Before Us

One of only two pictures with my dad

I got a little side-tracked with some other personal issues, but thank you so much for all your kind comments, FB messages and e-mails. Your love and encouragement has truly been a blessing in my life.

Here’s a recap for the last 8 days, kind of like they do on the television. I know it’s easy to get lost with such a complicated story that takes so many twists and turns over the years.

My parents that so-called adopted me at birth divorced when I was the age of 6. Shortly after that, my adoptive mother remarried my medical doctor father. I was led to believe he had adopted me, but crushingly I learned, as an adult, that was one of many untruths. Apparently, I just assumed his last name; the courts in two states don’t even have any records for a name change for me over the years. Since reading my father’s first wife’s will, it’s not clear if his other daughter somehow played into part of why he never adopted me.

When my stepfather just appeared out of the blue, of course, as a little girl, I would have never given it any thought about his life before us. My investigative skills weren’t that great back then. Born in 1910, he was old enough to be my grandfather, but that didn’t matter to me. At 50 years old, dad came into my life. I often hear “that figures why you ended up mysteriously in my adoptive family as a newborn. Your parents were well-to-do and managed to pay someone under the table for you.” My medical doctor stepfather had absolutely no part in my unethical adoption at birth. My adoptive parents were just trying to make ends meet and my stepfather made us a rich new family overnight.

I can’t do this as creative as the sitcoms, but I know my family dynamics has more than enough drama for a television series. Here goes, I am not breathing at the end of each sentence. I stumbled on a large sum of unclaimed money that confirmed that my stepfather had been married before. In getting a copy of his ex-wife’s will, I learned that not only did he have a daughter and son, but a grandson and granddaughter close to my age. Sadly the son and grandson had passed away.

His “out there” daughter as described by a relative was left some kind of trust for over $300,000 for the Salvation Army to take care of her after the death of her mother. Presumably the substantial amount of money was tied to my dad. My father’s daughter and the son’s widow never could be found. But with the help of a couple of my friends, I was able to locate his granddaughter.

But who was the “flighty as a feather” girl that had come to my grandpa’s door at one time…my father’s daughter, or his granddaughter that was closer to my age? Well, I was about to find out…