Golden Hour Family

By Eve Sturges

NPE: Non-Paternal Event 

(noun) A genealogical term used to describe the disconnect that occurs in familial lineage when a person, as an adult, discovers at least one parent is not biologically related.

(noun) a qualifying term used by people who have experienced the unexpected discovery of a genealogical disconnect between themselves and at least one parent. As in: “When I found out my parents used a sperm donor, I realized I am an NPE.” 

MPE: Misattributed Parentage Event 

A social term used to describe the myriad DNA-discoveries that can occur, including late-discovery adoption, donor conception, and non-paternal event. As in: “I found out that as a teenager I had fathered a child; when this person reached out to me, I realized I am a part of the MPE community.” 

Genetic Mirroring

A term or phrase used to describe the powerful experience of seeing similar physical traits in a relative. “Without genetic mirroring, I’ll never understand where my green eyes came from.” 

Facebook 

(noun) Modern society’s downfall. See also ‘social media,” “Twitter,” “Instagram,” “Discord.”

It was a lovely photo, an innocuous post. A group of dark-haired adults sitting around a table, smiling at the camera, golden hour sunset glowing from a side door. Colorful Fiesta pottery suggests a delicious meal is imminent. Wood side-paneling screams “Montana cabin,” and I swear there are golden-retriever puppies asleep on the floor. 

“It’s a truly amazing feeling when I can see all my siblings at one time again. The nostalgia hits hard and the old and new memories made are truly a blessing.” 

For a split-second, it’s no big deal. I scroll social media quickly these days, tired of its mundanity, confused by the chaos, embarrassed to be addicted to it anyway. I stop at this one, caught off guard by the golden hues. My heart leaps into my throat, and my breath quickens. I feel angry and sad at the same time. I think I am being ridiculous and try to move along to more important posts like parenting memes and TikTok tips. But my thumb is out of my control, bringing the handsome family back to me again and again. 

They are my handsome family; I was not invited to dinner. 

I do what any responsible person with feelings does in 2022: I post about it in a Facebook support group for MPEs. I know it’s the only place I will be understood, and I am right. The community love-wraps me in digital hugs immediately. Emojis rain down in solidarity. When I read the comment from a friend with rainbow hair, “wrapping you in my arms,” I cry harder. 

The only unusual detail about my non-paternal event is that my biological father reached out to me; typically it’s the offspring who deliver the news to unsuspecting parents, most often after a mail-in DNA kit offers unexpected results. But when I was 38 years old, a man named Peter called and said, “We’ve been waiting for you to find us!” “Us” included five new siblings. I had always wanted siblings. 

Let me start over. 

I grew up with three siblings and married parents. My parents are still married, despite the phone call that revealed I was actually the product of an affair they’d hidden long ago, hoping to forget. They met in high school and are determined to stay together forever. In a complicated and heartbreaking state of affairs between my family and a government foster system, one of my sisters left our home at age 12 and later died from medical complications resulting from her Down syndrome. My other sister suffers from myriad mental and psychological challenges that keep her functioning like a highly anxious 6-year-old. I have a brother, too, and it isn’t that we don’t get along. We do, it’s fine. But that seems to be as good as it will ever get: fine. Somehow, the three-year age difference between us makes an endless sea of different childhood experiences, and we have very little in common. It seems as good a place as any to mention that they—my brother, sister, and parents–all have blue eyes. My dark features were just minor details, explained away with shrugs and vague ancestry references, a song and dance familiar to many of us in this special club.

So, yes, I have siblings. I have an entire family, intact. But this photograph staring at me from Facebook? We’ve never had a photo like that. Congenial, familial, comfortable. Everyone at that dinner table in Montana has brown eyes. My dark, thick eyebrows were MADE to be with those people. They are my people. I am their people. 

And yet … is that true? As a psychotherapist, I take my clients through an exercise called “feelings are not facts.” I first learned it from a mentor when I was in my twenties, and I learned about it again while studying cognitive behavioral therapy in graduate school. A lot of emotional experiences aren’t based on the actual world around us, and it can be helpful to check one against the other. 

My biological father died shortly after contacting me. He turned my whole existence upside down and then left me holding the pieces. The truth will set you free, but the truth will fuck everything up, too. With my identity shattered, the relationship with my parents fractured, my world spinning, I finally connected with a few of these brothers and sisters on Facebook in early 2020. Three were receptive, two were enthusiastic. The pandemic prevented in-person meetings, but so did the stress of all the challenges that came with it in our everyday lives: lockdowns, mask mandates, toilet paper shortages, disastrous testing centers, grounded flights, zoom schooling, doom scrolling, and life evolving around us faster than we could keep up. I have three children and a private therapy practice that I run from home. Oh, and a podcast. How and when was I supposed to connect with these siblings, and where would we even start? 

I can hear my mentor’s voice in my head, and I can see myself with clients: feelings are not facts. I let myself cry, and I also start to list my feelings out loud: I feel like I would fit in at that dinner. I feel like it would be the sibling connection I’ve always craved, and they’ve left me out on purpose. I feel like we would all know each other in an unspoken understanding about having dark, thick eyebrows. If I were at that dinner, we could finally explore the millions of questions we have about each other, our father, and who we each are as his individual offspring. We would probably stay up all night and take another beautiful photograph with the sweet light of dawn coming in from the other direction. I take a minute to scream into a pillow about the maddening powerlessness of it all. 

There’s nothing left except the facts: If Facebook is any kind of evidence, I actually would not fit in with these people. We have extremely disparate opinions, lifestyles, values. They’ve made little effort toward me, but I haven’t done much better. The truth is that I don’t believe I was left out on purpose; I wasn’t even a consideration. It’s still an idea to chew on, but it’s different than an intentional snub nonetheless. The fact is that more than one sibling has suggested to me, in our brief message exchanges, that there are brewing tensions in the family, and they have their own complicated history; it is unlikely that the golden hour glow stayed for long. 

The fact is that I am often lonely in post-ish pandemic Los Angeles. I miss the ease of companionship and get-togethers, and we’re all exhausted by Zoom. Transition fatigue is real, and I’m unsure how to transition into six or seven new sibling relationships while we’re all navigating everything else. The fact is that I love dinner parties, and I’ve always wanted Fiesta tableware. The fact is that I am scared I’ll offend or frighten them with my millions of questions. The fact is that there’s a lot I don’t know about every aspect of this complex situation, and that is the hardest obstacle of all. 

The fact is that there are, actually, no dogs in the photograph at all. 

I’ve adapted the “feelings are not facts” exercise for and with my clients and added a second tier—the Serenity Prayer. This isn’t from my mentor or CBT therapy. Originally written by a theologian in 1933, it’s famously known as a foundational tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous. (No one reinvents the wheel.)

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

The courage to change the things I can, 

And the wisdom to know the difference. 

The fact is that despite not having an idyllic relationship with the siblings I grew up with, I do indeed have a family that extends to many aunts and uncles and cousins who love me. We don’t have a cabin in Montana, but we have taken plenty of photographs over the years. A recent reunion was in Idaho, and I don’t remember feeling lonely or unsure about the definition of “family” on those days. I can’t control this picture on Facebook that made me cry, but I can contact my cousin, Jesse, who always brings the best camera. 

“Hey, didn’t we take some group shots on the beach? I’d love a copy please!” I shoot off using a family thread in WhatsApp. Others chime in: My cousin Mariah in Ethiopia also wants a copy; my aunt Ginny in Portland was wondering about it just the other day! Within minutes, a new photograph dominates my screen. We don’t all have matching eyebrows, and there isn’t a golden glow because it was overcast that day, but everyone is smiling. I remember that we are a supportive, fun group despite various challenges over the years. I consider the differences between us, and the family history, and remember that a photograph only captures a single moment, and a photograph doesn’t tell the whole story. 

I write a second message, this time to a half-brother in Wyoming. He posted the dinner party picture that started it all. Our relationship, thus far, is Facebook acceptance only. The courage to change the things I can. “Hey! I saw that family picture at your mom’s house. It looked so nice and fun. I hope you’re well. Now that COVID seems to be fading, maybe I can finally meet y’all one day soon.”  It’s met with silence, but I know I did my part. 

24-hours later, a message rolls in. “That’d be awesome. Sorry, I was at the gym.” 

A few weeks later and we’re still exchanging small notes back and forth, some kind of awkward attempt at conversation and getting to know one another. I messaged a half-sister too, and she wrote back about a recent move to Florida and with sweet questions about my own family. I feel less forgotten, or ignored. I’m holding back on the really big questions, but it feels like we’re closer to a dinner party than we were before. That’s something. 

I’m reaching out to my people here, too, the ones I consider my Los Angeles family, instead of feeling sorry for my lonely butt and waiting by the phone. I’m working on gratitude for the life I have, instead of wondering about the life I could have had if every single thing was different. I am allowing myself to feel my feelings, but I am trying to remember to check them against the facts, too.

By Eve Sturges

By Eve Sturges