By Gwen Lee

Nothing has changed and everything has changed. That’s the refrain often heard from NPEs*  when they talk about their discoveries.

Nothing has changed. My husband still loves me. My children are still my children and they still love me. I haven’t lost my job. In fact, none of my co-workers even knows about my new status.  I still go grocery shopping every Saturday. I haven’t had to skip any meals. I still enjoy the hobbies that I’ve enjoyed for many years. The sun rises every morning and sets in the evening, painting the sky with those beautiful colored sunsets I enjoy so much. The ocean waves still meet the sand at our beautiful beaches. So, how bad can this development be? Why do I find myself dissolving into tears every day?

Learning that you’re an NPE affects everyone differently. However, I’d bet that the vast majority of NPEs find themselves confronted with changes of some sort. What changed for me?

The earth shifted on its axis. Fortunately, this was only a temporary change. It would greatly trouble me to think that I was responsible for a permanent change in the way the world turned. How could I explain that to inquiring minds? However, that was the how I felt initially.  My world turned upside down. There was confusion, which gave way to a realization that loaded me onto my emotional roller coaster, which eventually dropped me off at a place of curiosity.

My feelings about who I was underwent a big change. Suddenly I started asking myself, “Who am I, really?” I could look in the mirror and still see the same hair, the green eyes, the glasses, and the extra pounds I was always trying to lose. So I knew that people who knew me would look at me and think nothing had changed. They, of course, wouldn’t know what I was feeling inside. Maybe they made a trip to the snack bar and missed the curve ball that was pitched to me. (I swung and missed.) It felt as if my whole life had been a lie. I, simply, was not the person I’d always thought I was. I started ticking off my personality traits and physical characteristics on my fingers, examining each one to determine if it might have come from my biological father, whom I had never met.

My sense of my family and my place in it changed. I realized I had a lot to learn about my family history. I also wanted to learn as much as I could about my “new” family—the family of my bio dad.

I started dealing with this change by telling my close family members about my discovery. That meant phone calls to my sister and each of the two brothers I grew up with. It also called for conversations with my two sons and their wives. I left it up to them when and if they chose to tell my grandchildren. I knew I was imparting sensitive information but I felt as if this discovery directly affected them and their children. There was never any doubt in my mind about telling them. My family members all assured me that this news changed nothing about their feelings toward me.

I also knew now that the man that I grew up believing was my father, was not my father. That was another change. My birth certificate father was the only one of the three key players who was still alive. My mother and bio father had both passed. I’m a fairly strong believer that people do have a “right to know.” However, after wrestling with the decision for a bit, I chose not to share what I had learned with my birth certificate father. He and my mother had divorced when I was five years old, and I didn’t have a particularly close relationship with him.  The reason for my decision not to tell him was that he was in the throes of dementia and very near the end of his life. If my mother had still been alive I know I would have had a lot more to grapple with. Was that a bit of luck for me? Maybe, but it also meant I would always have a lot of unanswered questions.

I’d been doing a lot of research since I got my DNA results and made my discovery. I’d also gotten some help from people who’d been doing this kind of research far longer than I had. A big change for me was that I now knew that instead of being the youngest of four siblings I was smack dab in the middle of seven siblings. The siblings that I grew up with were half, even though I’d never thought of them as halves instead of wholes. Now with six siblings, I still didn’t have any whole siblings.

I’d been successful in establishing communication with two cousins on my bio dad’s side. I gave all my contact information to one of these cousins and asked him to pass it along to my three “new” siblings, all half-sisters. He told me he did but he also advised me not to expect anything from them. They could not come to term with their father’s “indiscretion.” One sister did, eventually come around to reaching out to me. We live quite a distance from each other but we’ve become acquainted by texting and talking on the phone. I feel grateful for her kindness and friendship.

I like to think another change I’ve undergone is that I have become more understanding and empathetic toward people who are going through their own personal crises. I have learned a lot, not just about genealogy and DNA, but also about the turbulence of that emotional roller coaster that people find themselves on when they’re faced with this sort of life-changing event.

I’m still working on making my way through all these changes. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel as if I have processed all the changes. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the feeling that there was likely no relationship involved in the circumstances of my conception. I still have some work to do.

My NPE status is never far from the forefront of my mind. So, while I’m sitting watching one of those beautiful sunsets or doing some of the crocheting that I have always enjoyed doing, I’m often thinking about the ways my life has changed and working on strategies to avoid stepping onto that roller coaster.

*NPE: not parent expected, or nonparental event

Gwen Lee is a mother and grandmother of four. She and her husband, Don, have been married for 51 years. Lee has lived in Southern California her whole life, and she retired in 2020 from her profession as an administrative assistant. She enjoys reading and crafting, particularly crochet. Her email address is gwenlee84@gmail.com.

By Christine Jacobsen*For months after I received the surprise DNA test results that revealed a not parent expected (NPE) event, I was obsessed with research into all things regarding a deceased Black man named Paul Keith Meeres, my biological father.

During the Vietnam War, I was more likely to identify with draft dodgers and conscientious objectors than someone who had actually served in the military, so it was a surprise to find out that Paul Meeres was a Marine in 1943 in World War Two.

Ancestry.com’s extensive records cited his rise in rank from private to sergeant and back to private on the muster rolls, and I was curious about the reason for this military inconsistency. I’d already received his death certificate, so I used it when looking for answers and requesting information from the National Archives.

Discharge papers arrived with a picture of Paul Meeres on his first day of muster. It was sad seeing a photograph of my biofather as a teenager going off to war. He looked so young. I was relieved to learn he was honorably discharged because I was learning about some of his self-destructive behaviors and feared that they might be the cause for a demotion in rank. Unfortunately, there was no information about the demotion. I would need personnel records to obtain that information.

On a beautiful warm day in September 2018, I was in Dumbo, Brooklyn, sightseeing with out-of-town friends. The change in military rank continued to trouble me as I wandered through photography exhibits under the Brooklyn Bridge. Separated from my friends for a moment, I stumbled upon an exhibit by the Marines. I asked Sergeant Bryan Nygaard if he knew how a demotion in rank happens. He asked where my father had been stationed.

When I told him Camp Lejeune and Montford Point, he said with an air of admiration, “Oh, he was a Montford Point Marine!”

He told me that in 1943 the first cohort of Blacks were allowed in the Marines, and that there could have been any number of reasons someone got demoted; racism could be one of them. He gave me his card and said to contact him if I had any further questions.

As I walked away from the Marine exhibit wondering why Sgt. Nygaard seemed so impressed with where my father had been stationed, my first cousin, whom I found on 23andMe.com, called me. She had a close relationship with Paul Meeres, who was her uncle. After we spoke, she texted me a photo of him in the Marines while he was stationed in Japan.

When I got home that day, I resumed my obsessive researching about my paternal line, focusing on the Montford Point Marines.

In 1941, Black civil rights leaders pressured President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue a decree banning discrimination in the defense industry. They threatened to send tens of thousands of protestors to Washington, DC.

Days before the protest march was to take place, President Roosevelt signed an executive order prohibiting government agencies from barring employment in the defense industries on the basis of race, color, national origin or creed. It was the first presidential decree issued on race since Reconstruction.

Thousands of Black men were eager to serve during the Second World War. They enlisted in the various arms of the military, and following this decree were allowed to become Marines. Once Marines, they were sent to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and were stationed at the adjacent segregated base camp called Camp Montford Point.

I thought about my teenage biofather coming from New York and being forced to ride in the segregated area of the train once it crossed the Mason-Dixon line—the indignity of it. And the further injustice of shuttling him and his fellow Marines to the base camp barracks in the backwoods. The segregated base camp was substandard compared to Camp Lejeune: the decrepit buildings were falling apart. When the men left base camp, they were often spat upon. As I became aware of the racism he experienced, I felt a confusing mix of emotions: guilt as a person who’d identified as white and anger reckoning with my new ethnicity.

Then on Wikipedia I saw that 66 years after my father’s tour of duty, President Obama and Congress awarded all 20,000 of the Montford Point Marines the Congressional Gold Medal. The greatest civilian honor Congress can bestow. My hands shook as I sobbed at this on my computer screen.

I knew the family never even knew about or received the awards in 2012. Could it still be given posthumously? I wondered how I could make that happen.

Since Staff Sgt. Nygaard had given me his business card, I reached out to him for advice. He said he would look into it and sent me a photo from military archives dated 1944 depicting the Montford Point Marines at a swimming pool in the camp. A man stood on the high dive looking down at the swimmers. The caption read: Black Marines practice descending cargo nets in Montford Point’s training pool under the watchful eye of Sergeant Paul Meeres (on board) (USMC Photo 8275). I was thunderstruck with pride.

Finally, after I provided the New York Chapter of the Montford Point Marines Paul Meeres’ discharge papers and death certificate, they wanted to present the Congressional Gold Medal to the surviving family at the annual dinner/dance less than two months from then, on November 18th, 2018.

I wasn’t sure why I was so anxious for Paul Keith Meeres to get this medal—whether it was for him, for me, for the legacy of the Montford Point Marines, or all of these. Was it for redemption?  If so, who was being redeemed?

And then I was asked for a biography of my father’s postmilitary life.

Because he had been a minor celebrity, I was able to learn from online photos that after the war he’d had an international dance career; he also had a violent streak. He struggled with sobriety and fathered multiple children he didn’t support or know about, like me. I grappled with the idea of honoring a man who behaved dishonorably at times, but the more I found out about the Montford Point Marines and their struggles with racism and segregation, the more passionate I became about honoring courage and service to country.

“I’m stuck,” I said to my adult son, Alek.

All I’d been asked for was a simple biography of his postmilitary life. At first I thought about writing of his illustrious show business career, but then paused because of his messy, complicated, flawed side. I still had an unrealistic idea about the military; I imagined the attendees at the ceremony would be upright citizens who were morally correct and intolerant of  behaviors they might consider dishonorable.

“What do you mean?” Alek asked. At times like these, when I admit to feeling unsure in front of my son, I feel less like a senior citizen, and more like a confused child.

“I’m embarrassed that Paul Keith Meeres’ life was so out of the normal. I bet the Marines at the ceremony have had education, jobs, marriages, and children they raised. He didn’t do any of those things.”

He asked me, “Do you think any of the Marines or their families have experienced any of these conditions? Have they had alcoholism, violence, and dysfunction in their lives?”

I thought about the foolishness of my assumptions—that because they were Marines they didn’t possess the character flaws and defects we all struggle with. With Alek’s guidance, a layer of humiliation slid off my body. I could still respect Paul Meeres’ service in the military during World War 2 while opening my heart to his humanity. I wrote that biography and a speech because my son was right—the Montford Point Marines and their families would understand, maybe better than any others, the struggle to be human. This was part of my inheritance as the daughter of a Montford Point Marine, a mixed-race woman whose ancestors echoed down to her from the past.

I invited all my newfound relatives to the ceremony, but only my half-sister, Paula, whom I had just met just twice prior to that evening, was able to come. With my husband, Angelo, now four weeks after hip replacement surgery, I picked her up at her house. She wore a glittery top and ruby red lipstick. Alek met us at Antun’s, the venue in Jamaica, Queens.

“Do you want to stand with me during the ceremony?” I asked Paula. We held hands a lot that evening, and later, looking at the video of the event, I noticed I put my arm around her almost instinctually.

The color guard marched in as an Audra Day track of “I’ll Rise Up” played in the background. From the first bar of that song, I tried not to cry.

On easels behind my sister and me were framed declarations from President Obama and the Marines. The medal, nestled in a velvet lined box, was heavy as I held it in my hand.

The inscription read For Outstanding Perseverance and Courage that inspired social change in the Marines Corps.

The tears I tried so hard to hold back flowed down my cheeks as I stepped up to the podium to give my speech:

Nelson Mandela said “what counts in life is not the mere fact that we lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” The Congressional Gold Medal affirms the significance of the life of Paul Keith Meeres and the other Marines who trained at Montford Point Camp. In this day of increasing intolerance and division in our country, it is heartening to realize that Congress, in 2012, was able and willing to show the national appreciation for the distinguished achievement and contribution the Montford Point Marines gave to American history and importantly, to African American history. The qualities of standing firm despite formidable odds, racism, and inhumane treatment is the mark of a hero, the making of the Montford Point Marines. My family and I are grateful for the patriotism Paul Meeres exhibited and the difference he made in the lives of the Marines who followed him. Semper fi.

After the ceremony, in the photo session, several Montford Point Marines, all in their 80s and 90s, were brought up to pose for pictures with us. One came up to me and said, “I remember Sgt. Meeres. He was my swimming instructor.” It was a great honor to be in their company, to acknowledge the Montford Point legacy, and mark my allegiance to my biological father. We were in a sea of multihued faces and military uniforms and were welcomed into the Montford Point community, descendants of Paul Keith Meeres.

Always faithful.

When the ceremonies were over, the dance floored was cleared and we all boogied to the tune of the Electric Slide, Paula, me, Alek, and Angelo, who stood on the dance floor with us, leaning on his cane.

*Adapted from her book, “Dancing Around the Truth”Christine Jacobsen is a retired school counselor who dedicated 20 years to education in upstate New York. Prior to that she had an engaging, decade-long career in the performing arts, appearing on Broadway and feature films. She’s written for local magazines and school journals highlighting topics of human development. Her debut memoir was inspired by a DNA test surprise, which left her asking herself, “Who Am I?” Follow her on Twitter @Christinesstory and on Instagram @christinefromqueens. 

BEFORE YOU GO…

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By Richard Wenzel“My mother believed in me, and because of that, I believe in myself. And I really can’t think of a greater gift that a parent can give their child.” Those words ended my eulogy, so I stepped down from the podium and solemnly returned to my seat. Later, as I mingled among the crowd, quite a few people praised my remarks. While kind words are standard at funerals, their comments seemed heartfelt and genuine. I thanked them, adding that praising my mother came easy because of my strong, life-long bond with her, a bond that would be her legacy forever.

“Forever” lasted 16 years, ending the day my mother reached up from the grave and wrought emotional ruin on the living, particularly me.

I distinctly remember being 11-years-old when my dad heartlessly embarrassed me at a school event. Being at odds with my father was commonplace during my childhood and peaked during my teenage and college years, after which I largely eliminated him from my life. As a child, I recognized fundamental differences between myself and my dad. I looked nothing like him. He was athletic, I was not. I excelled academically, whereas he had struggled as a student. The list goes on. When I returned home after the embarrassing school event with tears in my eyes, I bluntly howled at my mom, “How is he my dad when I’m nothing like him and he’s nothing like me?” “He’s your dad, just try to forgive him,” she replied. Over the next quarter century, I asked her some version of that question on dozens of occasions, sometimes in a calm voice, sometimes in harsh tones through gritted teeth. She always responded with some version of that same answer. For some reason I just accepted her words rather than taking my question toward a logical conclusion, probably because I never realized that trusting your mother was fraught with risk.

Today, I know her answers were lies. Presumably well-intentioned, but calculated deception nevertheless. I cannot condone dishonesty, but I might forgive her for lying to me when I was an impressionable 11-year-old. But she lied to me when I was in my 20s, past the age when I needed her protection. And she lied when I was in my 30s, when I had attained a level of stability, independence, and success that her life never had. I will not forgive those transgressions. Where is the inflection point between my mother’s lying being a misguided protection of her child (and herself) from embarrassment and her lying being a selfish, unkind act of cowardice toward her adult son? Frankly, I believe that upon my 18^th birthday my mother should have been criminally charged for having knowingly falsified a legal document—my birth certificate. Imagine a world where parents and their enablers face legal consequences for their DNA identity deceptions! Unknowingly, I’ve been her criminal accomplice; over the years information I wrote on critical documents such as family medical history questionnaires or life insurance applications was fiction, even though I believed it to be true at the time.

I was not my mother’s only secret. When I was 8-years-old and already had two younger siblings, she gave birth again, immediately placed the child for adoption, and then spent the remainder of her life pretending that event never occurred. Other adults—my dad, aunts, uncles, and family friends—kept silent as well. I stayed silent too, as I’d been conditioned to do. To this day, I regret my blind obedience and lack of inquiry, as I will never know why my mother chose different fates for me and my sibling. Attempting to rectify this error, about a year ago I submitted my DNA test.  The results did not reveal my sibling, but I will keep searching. The results did, however, provide an unexpected-yet-not-entirely-surprising discovery—confirmation that my dad is not my biological father. A few months later, I discovered my biological father’s identity. Unfortunately, he, too, died years ago.

Great, just great.

Like any rational person uncovering the lies of their existence, I have many questions for my biological parents, the two people ‘at the scene of the crime,’ so to speak. I wish to ask my mother:

What happened? 

How and when did you two meet? 

Did my biological father know a baby resulted? 

Why did you falsely tell my dad that I was his child? And maintain this charade for decades? 

Why did you never tell me the truth, even though you repeatedly told me how proud you were of me and how mature, responsible, and successful I was?

Actually, my conception may have been a crime: circumstantial evidence suggests that my mother was sexually assaulted. Since the alleged perpetrator and his victim now reside in the afterlife, I’m left to ponder whether I am the product of a rape. How can I remain angry at my mom’s dishonesty and offer her compassion for her trauma? Try falling asleep while such questions bounce through your head. I have no choice but to do so.

My mother had 35 years to find the fortitude to share the truth, a difficult truth, to be sure. Yet she never offered her important words, not even a deathbed confession. For her sake, I wish she would have spoken up; among other harms, she denied herself the catharsis she might have found in honest expression.

Being an NPE sucks! Being among the NPEs whose biological parents are dead at the time of discovery sucks even more! I have empathy for and jealousy toward other NPEs who complain about their arguments with their parents (or in some instances, parent). I yearn to have an argument with my mother, but that opportunity is literally buried underground. I would be grateful to simply meet my biological father, just once, let alone hear his version of this story. But he now exists only in someone else’s memory.

My mom was a strong, intelligent woman I admired. How do I reconcile my memory of her with the truth I now possess? How do I mourn, why should I mourn, can I mourn for my biological father, a man I never knew? My mother’s dishonesty denied me the right to know the authenticity of my existence and so much more.

Sorry Richard, your mom’s dead, your dad too, and they took all the answers with them. So, toughen up and just move on. 

I am trying. What choice do I have?Richard Wenzel grew-up in Illinois, working hard and joyfully playing on his family’s farm with siblings and friends. A health care professional by training, he’s turned his healing skills inward since learning his true DNA heritage. To help raise awareness about NPEs, he writes and speaks whenever opportunities arise and was recently a contributor to the podcast NPE Stories. You can contact him at lone.tree.road.npe@gmail.com.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more essays and articles about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
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• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
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This year I turn 48, the age my father was when he died of pancreatic cancer. So I had a genetic test. I wanted to know if there was a reason to worry I might get—or have—cancer. I already know I have risk factors: an immediate family member who died before the age of 50, and I have Ashkenazi Jewish heritage on both sides.

A desire to foresee my fate, to know my destiny, opened a Pandora’s box. In order to get a genetic test, I was required to receive counseling first, to understand how genes work, what risk factors I may have, to decide whether I really want to know if something deleterious is waiting for me.

In our session, the counselor talked me through genes and inheritance. On a piece of paper, she drew a genogram, a family tree with symbols depicting gender and relationships, known cancers, and deaths.

“In anthropology, we call that a kinship chart,” I told her. As an anthropologist, I was familiar with these models. Kinship diagrams show relationships. For anthropologists who go to live in foreign cultures, it’s a tool to reduce confusion between common names in the community of study. It’s a way to map a community, as relationships between people impart more meaning and contextual information than does an individual.

My genogram only had ten symbols on it. Ten known family members, five of whom were deceased. The genetic counselor wrote the words “limited info” on the paper depicting my family. “That was quick,” she said. “You don’t have a lot to go over because you don’t have a lot of family.”

A 2019 PEW Research Center survey found that 27% of home DNA test users discover unknown close relatives, meaning a person could accidentally learn they are not biologically linked to those to whom they thought they were related. DNA tests can have devastating emotional consequences when people learn they have no genetic connection to their kin.

But I was in the inverse situation: my genetic test results impacted biological relatives to whom I had no actual connection.

My father had estranged himself from his family of origin when he was in his early thirties. He cut off all contact with his mother and two younger brothers by the time I was eight. (His father had died by then, due to heart-related issues, as far as I know.) I don’t know why he did it, but as an adult reflecting back, I think disconnecting was what my father felt he had to do to survive.

Forty years later and 26 years after my father’s death, I had the test and learned one copy of my ATM gene has a pathogenic mutation, an alteration with sufficient evidence to be classified as capable of causing disease.

The abbreviation ATM stands for “ataxia-telangiectasia mutated.” The ATM gene is located on chromosome 11. It helps control cell growth and repair and replace damaged DNA. Research suggests that people who carry one mutated copy of the ATM gene may have an increased risk of developing several types of cancer. Those who carry ATM mutations experience more frequent cancers of the breast, stomach, bladder, pancreas, lung, and ovaries than do others, but studies are neither definitive nor conclusive. Research is ongoing, and guidelines and testing protocols are updated every year as new information is learned. The gene wasn’t even discovered until 1994, the same year my father died.

There is justification for worry. In 2020, pancreatic cancer was the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the US—surpassing breast cancer—and is on the rise. Pancreatic cancer has a very low survival rate. Symptoms are generally not detectable in early stages; by the time it’s found, it’s usually so advanced that treatment and surgery have little benefit. Some research shows chemotherapy may extend life only by days or weeks, and the quality of that extra time is not good. The median survival rate is three to six months.

It’s a short distance from pancreatic cancer diagnosis to death. Recently we mourned the losses of “Jeopardy” host Alex Trebek, civil rights legend John Lewis, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and, not that long ago, actor Patrick Swayze, to pancreatic cancer.

My father lived 16 months past his diagnosis. He endured surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy and suffered their ravages. I saw him lose his ability to walk, see, eat, speak. He exceeded expectations, but it was a long, slow slide to the inevitable, and we had that much more time to watch him suffer with helpless dread. I was with him as he died. The grief from that loss is still with me today.

I assumed, as did my genetic counselor, that my mutation was inherited, not caused by something in the environment, even though only 3% to 10% of diagnosed cancers are heritable.

The only way to know for sure would be to fill in my genogram, my kinship chart, with more information from living family members: my father’s brothers—my uncles, who were, in effect, strangers.

Genetic testing for pathogenic mutations in family members can be helpful in identifying at-risk individuals. What was my obligation to my biological relatives? If not to my father’s estranged brothers, what about their adult daughters? There’s a 50% chance they inherited a mutated gene that increases their risk for cancers, and if they have it, their children have a 50% chance of inheriting the mutation as well.

These women are strangers. I never met them. I don’t know if they know I exist or if they knew they had an uncle who died. But the genetic information is important; I would want to know if there was something in the biology of a stranger that affected me.

I searched for my cousins’ addresses on the Internet so the genetic counselor could send a letter: “A member of your family has been identified as having a mutation in the ATM gene….”

I asked the genetic counselor to include my contact information and how we are related in the letter so my cousins could reach out to me if they wanted. She informed me it’s against policy.

Robert Kolker, author of “Hidden Valley Road,” suggests genetic ties are but one aspect of how we connect to others: “We are more than just our genes; we are in some way a product of the people who surround us, the people we’re forced to grow up with and the people we choose to be with later. Our relationships can destroy us, but they can change us too and restore us, and without us ever seeing it happen, they define us. We are human because the people around us make us human.”

I wanted to do a good thing, the right thing. But maybe I can’t make a familial connection out of a biological one.Amy Goldmacher is an anthropologist, book coach, and author in Michigan. Visit her website and find her on Twitter and Instagram @solidgoldmacher.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

By Eve SturgesI used to think in paragraphs, sort of dream in sentences, always in love with the way words work. In high school, Mr. Riley taught us how to string sounds together regardless of meaning. I fell in love with lilting Ls, rolling Rs, phrases like “cinnamon vanilla turquoise.” I loved speeches in the movies, and in real life, where every word packs a punch to create sentences that change the world. Annie Dillard, Joan Didion, Julio Cotazar, and David Foster Wallace served as totems while I prayed for guidance at the keyboard. Essays were a voice for me, a way to process events, both traumatic or hilarious, and create a record of my life in a world where I often felt unheard. Screenplays were a way to create images and dialogue where written words were not enough. I was getting support from people I admired. I was getting paid for pieces about all the stupid thoughts in my head about the events in my life. People asked about a book. I was looped into pitch meetings. It wasn’t always positive; hearing “no” always stung, but it meant I was putting myself out there.

And then a man called my husband, and my husband called me, to say: my whole life has been a lie. There was a convoluted story about a group of Christians in the late 1970s, betrayal, secrets, heartbreak. The man explained he was sure that I was his daughter; the man who raised me was, in fact, not my father.

As one might imagine, drama ensued. Everything stopped inside me. Paragraphs and word play were replaced with whispered phone calls, difficult emails, awkward conversations, countless questions, a million tears. Try as I might, I don’t feel like there is anything to write about because everything to write about is loaded. Secrets and shame are the throughline. My lost identity is the lede. My book proposal for a memoir about the relationship between mothers and daughters? Null and void. My mom said please don’t put this on Facebook. My dad said please just wait before putting pen to paper about any of this.

Now it’s been two years. The world outside me did not stop or wait for me to sort through the myriad feelings. There has been a job, kids, marriage, groceries, holidays, global pandemic, American facism, whatever. It all keeps happening whether I can process who my father is, or not. I insisted I was fine, kind of. And yet, the thing I was the most proud of—writing—became an idea of something I used to do. It’s a dream deferred, a sad side effect I didn’t expect.

And yet.

I woke up the other day thinking about the sound of footsteps on gravel. It’s crunchy. It’s familiar. Crunch, crunch, it kept looping, until it formed a sentence about memories, about horror movies, about a young man on the side of a road pacing back and forth with a cigarette. It’s the opening sound in a mediocre screenplay I cobbled together in my 20s. I woke up thinking about that sound, and thinking that maybe my old script should be a novel, and maybe I could write it.

Instead of pulling up that old screenplay, today I wrote this essay about how I was afraid that I might never write again. It’s an exercise in meta-reflection, which is a term I just made up. It feels good putting this all together. It’s not exactly like riding a bike, but like remembering the notes of an old song that used to be my favorite. My voice is squeaky, off-key. But present.

The most obvious thing to write about, for a person who has always written about personal experiences, is the events of the past two years. Instead, my mind keeps going back to the novel. I’m still worried about what will happen if my true story comes pouring out. My thoughts say “write, but write about this, instead.” A creative defense mechanism, of sorts.

Developing a podcast was a defense mechanism, whether I intended it to be or not. It is like the opposite of my writing; I don’t have time to massage words into beautiful sounds. It all comes out awkwardly, unedited. My words are halting; sometimes I am at a loss altogether and I sputter and repeat myself. I need it that way. Our stories are not often beautiful; they are often awkward at best. Adults who are experiencing this loss of identity are raw, and I want to capture that. By listening to others tell their truths, their own DNA discoveries, the lies they’ve uncovered, or the secrets they’ve unearthed, I am listening for my own. I am feeling relief every time I can say to a guest, “Me too.” I am using their words to fill the place where the paragraphs used to be inside me.

But since the other day, I feel a small ember of something coming alive. It’s words, slowly forming with lilting Ls and rolling Rs, it’s beautiful sounds like vanilla cinnamon turquoise. It’s hope; this part of me isn’t, actually, dead. It’s the stories inside me waiting to spill out, in a world where I otherwise often feel unseen. It’s an ember that may turn into a fire of words that upset some people and change relationships, whether I ever post on Facebook or not. It’s an ember that is my truth; it hasn’t stopped glowing. I’ll take it one step at at time, starting with the crunchy sounds of gravel.

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By Jess Kent-JohnsonI radiate a warm glow in the photo—a farmer’s tan from hours of playing outside in the Texas sun. A neighborhood friend had documented the moment via disposable camera. It’s hard to remember what occasion we were marking—an eleventh birthday party, perhaps, or the end of the school year. Whatever the event, my smile is wide, genuine, and my brown eyes are scrunched into happy almonds in a heart-shaped face.

This photo never meant anything special to me then, but now I wonder how could I—how could my family—not have questioned my true heritage? I’m 34 years old and I’ve just discovered by way of an at-home DNA test that I’m 25% Japanese. This revelation launches me into a frenetic investigation—activating an old Ancestry.com account, sending cryptic text messages to my parents and brother, and diagramming possibilities on the back of a napkin.

After all, my maiden name sounds like a type of sausage, and Mom is a freckled redhead, clearly the offspring of Scottish-Irish farmers. Growing up, I’d never been questioned about my whiteness, although there were comments that I tended to tan in a more olive tone than did my younger brother. Since we played outside for 6 hours a day in the southern heat, no one thought twice about it.

After hours of frantic speculation, I get a text message from my mother, with whom I have shared the surprising ethnic breakdown. She says, “Can I call you later?” It’s on this phone call that she shares the truth—there was an ex-boyfriend who was half-Japanese just before she and Dad got married. She’s Googled him to find an obituary from 2012. He’s survived by a brother, a wife, and his Japanese mother. Mom sends me the link.

The need for information consumes me. Through the names and locations in the obituary, I construct a new family tree at Ancestry.com, searching through other public trees for details or connections. I message someone who has posted a photo of herself at my biological father’s wedding—it turns out she is his sister-in-law. She puts me in touch with my surviving uncle in Texas—states away from my current home in Wisconsin. Initially he’s generous with details and sends a few photos of my father and grandmother. After a few months, however, the connection trails off. He claims to be busy with other family affairs. I’m cautious. I try not to ply him with too many questions, afraid that I may fray the tenuous connection we’ve had thus far. He tells me that while my grandmother is still alive, she has severe dementia and has completely lost her sight. I might never meet this woman, and even if I do, it’s potentially damaging to her to explain the circumstances of our relationship. I try not to be dismayed. The facts he shares: my grandfather was a GI in World War II, he and my grandmother met in Japan, they married and  divorced, and my grandfather died in a tragic farming accident.

So what’s a girl to do when she’s been flung out into the ether, isolated and spinning without any tether to who she is? Ordinarily, I might visit cultural festivals or historical societies, or enjoy cuisine from my new culture at a traditional restaurant. Unfortunately, I’ve learned this ground-shaking news amid a global pandemic, during which survival requires that I keep a distance from both strangers and friends.

Instead I use Ancestry.com to find the ship manifest that shows my grandmother’s departure from Yokohama in 1952 and her arrival in San Diego. She was 22 years old. I search for books about World War II and its aftermath in Japan and discover John W. Dower—a historian who has written extensively about America’s occupation of the island nation. Japan had been racked by air raids, poverty, and a diminished population of young Japanese men. GIs were friendly and laden with chocolate or cigarettes to share. Women who married these men became “Japanese war brides.” I understand the allure of traversing the ocean for the possibility of better prospects.

From each book I keep a meticulous list of hyperlinks, notes, bibliographies—following these details like bread crumbs that will lead me home. My research leads me to a documentary, “Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight,” the story of war brides who endure the otherness of being Japanese in an American world. Their families in Japan often discouraged them from marrying American men. They dealt with U.S. segregation and the bitterness of Japanese Americans who had survived U.S. internment camps and perceived the women as entitled and lazy.

I form a composite picture of my grandmother based on similarities among the women of the film. All have done the best they could to survive, learn English, work, and raise children in an unfamiliar land, the side effects of which were often domineering personalities, high expectations, and subdued emotion.

The cocktail of emotions I experience as I pore through these resources is jarring. Some days I grieve that I can only conjecture whether my grandmother’s personality aligns with the women in these stories. My uncle is not yet willing to share more intimate details of their childhood, and my mother has no more information than what the Internet provides.

In other moments, I wonder if I should feel relief that I will never meet my grandmother. What if she was unwelcoming to me, scarred too deeply by past trauma to extend empathy to an adult granddaughter born out of wedlock? In these fraught moments, I look back at my childhood photo—the smiling, carefree daughter—and I try to still my mind with gratitude. I may not have first-hand knowledge of this person and the culture from which I’ve sprung, but I do have courage. Perhaps the best way I can emulate my grandmother is to continue my own voyage into a culture I’ve never known.Jess Kent-Johnson is a writer, actor, and musician. She lives in Madison, WI with her husband, Alex, and dog, Arrow. Find her at www.jesskentjohnson.com or on Instagram @surelyyoujesst.

By B.J. OlsonI was born William Joseph Olson in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on September 27, 1979, when my mother was only 20 years old. Because she’d been intimate with two men, she couldn’t be certain who my father was. One of the men, Brent, had been her senior prom date, and the other, Howard, was eleven years older—a man she saw when he was home on leave from the military. Her father despised him, and though she prayed he wasn’t my father, she suspected he was, thinking she remembered the night I was conceived: Christmas Eve 1978.

Howard had already been married and had a daughter, but my mother believed he was divorced at the time she became involved with him. A dental technician, he was the older brother of my mother’s close friend Alice from high school. During his visits to Lennox, he’d take my mom out on dates, usually to the races. When he wasn’t drunk, my mother says, he was a great guy.

When it came time for my mother to fill in the birth certificate, she chose to leave the father’s name blank. That decision profoundly influenced my life and my self image.

As a poor single woman, she needed state assistance, but the state required her to provide the name of the person who might be my father. She named Brent, but a DNA test ruled him out. That could only mean the man my grandfather despised—Howard—was my father.

When the state agency again asked for the name of a potential father, she then gave them Howard’s name and tried to reach out to him directly before the state would. Howard did everything he could to avoid contact with her. In 1983, she wrote to his commanding officer in the Army, where he was stationed at the time. He wrote back on January 23, 1984 to assure her he would take care of the situation. A week later, she received a letter from Howard’s lawyer telling her not to contact Howard directly again and advising her that all further communications had to be directed to his legal office.

My mother didn’t have the means to hire a lawyer. She’d been under the assumption that since she had to give my father’s name to the state, the situation would be taken care of. It would take the state’s Department of Social Service until August 2, 1996 , when I was just shy of 17 years old, to send a letter to Howard requesting that he take a DNA test to determine paternity.

On January 15, 1997, Howard was finally served papers requiring him to take a DNA Paternity test. The court documents stated that should he be shown to be my father, he’d be responsible for $368 per month in back child support—$79,488—along with half of all medical bills accrued for a problematic birth, tonsil surgery, and a five-day intensive care stay for a concussion I suffered playing football, not to mention all the miscellaneous doctor, dentist, and eye appointments. Another letter, dated March 6, 1997, indicated that he’d be permitted to take the test in Huntsville, Alabama at the Columbia Medical Center and that he wasn’t required to report for the test until April 10, 1997. It took almost six weeks until Howard received a letter from Social Services excluding him as my father.

It was bad enough that my mother was an unmarried woman in a small town, but now, with the only men she’d ever been with ruled out by DNA, she had no clue who my father was. For the next 20 years, she believed she must have been drugged and raped and thus couldn’t recall who the father was. She couldn’t think of another explanation. This had a powerful impact on her, affecting her ability to trust others and contributing to bad decisions in her relationships with men.

I grew up very ashamed of not knowing who my father was. I feared meeting new people who would ask who my parents were. I never had a full answer. People who haven’t experienced this would be surprised how many times you get asked about your dad. I dreaded the first day of school every year when we would have to stand up and tell the entire class about ourselves. I would try to avoid the topic of my father, but it never worked. Until I was 38 years old, I felt my mother was always hiding something from me. I wasn’t sure who she was protecting or trying to protect me from. Naturally, I resented her because I felt she was the reason I didn’t have a dad.

On August 12, 2015, an Ancestry.com commercial lured me into spending $88.95 on what I referred to as my spittoon of hope. Finally, I thought, there was technology that might answer some questions. I was so excited the day the box arrived that I spat in the vial as soon as I was able to muster the saliva. I registered the kit, sent it off, and patiently waited for the results. When at last they came in, my excitement quickly died because there were only distant matches which meant nothing to an amateur like me. I logged off Ancestry.com and once again began to look at every man roughly 20 years older than me and wonder if he was my father.

Nearly three years later, on March 17, 2018, my daughter wondered how substantial our Irish bloodline was, so I logged back in to look at my results. My jaw dropped. I had a new first cousin match, Joanna, whom I didn’t know. I immediately called my mother to ask who the heck she was. A few days later, I received a message through the Ancestry app from Joanna’s daughter, who managed her DNA test. After communicating with her, I learned that Joanna had been raised to believe her grandmother was her mother and her mother was her sister. But in fact, the woman she thought was her sister was her mother. She’d had an affair with Howard’s father when she was very young. Because of her age, her mother decided to raise the child who resulted from that union—Joanna—as her own. Joanna, then, although she didn’t learn about this until much later in life, was Howard’s half sister. The existence of this close match seemed to lend weight to the idea that Howard was my father, but since Joanna was only a half sister, it left room for doubt.

My mother and I were astounded by this discovery and had many questions. We needed to dive deeper. To confirm this Ancestry.com match, my mother reached out to her high school friend—Howard’s younger full sister—who agreed to take a test from Health Street, a Lab Corp company. On April 20, 2018, the results demonstrated that she and I were a 99.9718% relative match.

Although I finally had confirmation about who my father was, I also then knew the sad truth that I’d never get to meet my biological father. If my father had been someone other than Howard, there might have been I chance I could have met him. But Howard had died in Sioux Falls, on April 5, 2010, less than 10 miles from where I lived at the time. Immediately I was angry and I wanted more answers!

Once I knew I was certainly related to Howard, I felt more confidence about contacting his famiIy. I knew he had a daughter and I reached out to try to find out more about him and to see if she’d take a test that would further confirm that we were siblings. Within minutes of receiving my message, she emailed me the original 1997 DNA test results from her deceased father and asked me not to contact her again. It struck me as odd she responded so quickly and happened to have that documentation, which I now knew was erroneous, at the ready.

Since I got nowhere trying to get information from my sister, I thought I’d connect with other members of my biological family. I’d known these people all along. Lennox was a small town of roughly 1,000 people when I grew up there. My family owned the local hair salon. Everyone knew everyone. Howard’s mother—whom I now know to be my grandmother—was our cleaning lady. His brother was our garbage man. His sister-in-law was my music teacher. The catcher on my baseball team and a classmate throughout all four years of high school were my cousins. I had relationships with all of these people prior to knowing that Howard was my father. Once I’d made my discovery, they all shut me out.

I had uncovered a big secret that no one wanted to talk about. The family had a pact, created by Howard’s closest brother Harry, to avoid all contact with me and my mother. Except for Joanna, all family members I discovered ultimately rejected me.

Even though all signs led to Howard, I continued to seek further evidence that he was my father. Since my relatives wouldn’t cooperate, I hired a genealogical private investigator who tracked my ancestry back a couple hundred years. The genealogical trail led to the same conclusion as did the DNA—that my ancestors were Howard’s family. It indicated that my grandparents were Howard’s parents, which meant that one of their sons was my father. But, like Howard’s daughter, none of his brothers would speak with me.

After I hired the investigator, Howard’s daughter sued me for $50,000.00 in the state of Texas for invasion of privacy and for stating that Howard had an illegitimate son. She noted this caused her and her family anguish. Just as her father had decades earlier, she tried to use lawyers to silence me.

I did not cave. I fought back to have her drop the suit. After I spent several thousand dollars in lawyer fees she finally did, and I made it clear to the family that I will not let this rest until I get the answers I deserve.

I’m not looking to expand my family, get invited to more family events that I don’t have time for, or even to take my father’s name. I just want an identity. I want my story to be known. I want to draw attention to the errors and deception that affect how vital records are created and maintained and assert that we should have the ability to correct vital records based on science.

I have been denied access to my father’s family history, his military benefits, and his medical history. I will continue to use my loud voice until I can make a change for everyone whose rights have similarly been denied. I intend to work to bring awareness about the situation of NPEs—to change laws to give NPEs the right to correct their birth records based on scientific evidence.

Since I have come forward with my story on my Facebook page @deniedaccessDNA and website DeNiedAccess,  dozens of people have come forward to share similar stories. I’m not alone in this battle, and I look forward to the day when people realize the truly innocent victims are the those who did not ask to be born and who are just trying to clean up everyone else’s mistakes. There is no QUIT in my DNA!!!

By Jodi Klugman-RabbTwo years ago, I discovered a birth father I knew nothing about after taking a 23andMe DNA test for fun. I hired a genealogist to locate him and, against her expert advice, went to his home to meet him when he ignored my phone calls. This man’s interest eventually overcame his denial and we began a relationship as father and daughter. With him came aunts, an uncle, cousins, a brother, a sister-in-law, and a nephew—instant family! As I met each of them, in turn they welcomed me with the typical Scottish declaration, “Welcome to the clan!” 23andMe had reported I was 50% Scottish, and now it was official.

With a major life cycle transition, there’s usually an official event: a wedding shower, baby shower, baby naming, a birthday party—a welcoming of a new stage or a new person, with all the accompanying pomp and circumstance of tradition. Interestingly, my official welcome to the clan occurred over the Jewish New Year— Rosh Hashana—also a time of new beginnings and discovery. The very nature of a new year is a beginning, albeit symbolic if not psychological.

When we have a difficult year, we can’t wait for the official ending and symbolic beginning of the next revolution around the sun—almost as if beginning again acts as a type of psychological barrier, representing an end to the difficulty. Yin and yang depict the necessary opposites of light and dark forces inherent to all aspects of creation—the seasons and the cycle of life, for example. A new beginning occurs on the heels of something ending. When I took the 23andMe test, I had no way of knowing the loss at 22 years old of the father who raised me would be the ending to this new beginning.

“Welcome to the clan” took the place of a “shower event” to mark the milestone of my birthright and triggered another uniquely Jewish tradition: exploring curiosity. I came into an established family whose members are geographically dispersed from me, but we had mutual curiosity. A basic tenet in Judaism is to question and pursue curiosity. My new family’s acceptance and curiosity served as an induction of sorts—asking questions, processing it all without judgment, and showing excitement at my involvement in the family. Wondering how I would fit in preoccupied me early on, something most individuals born into a family typically don’t experience, since bonding with an infant grows as people witness their milestones. None of these people had ever experienced any of mine.

There’s usually a lot of adjustment that comes with all life transitions, and the unexpected identity confusion that comes with discovering new paternity has certainly required adjustment. In a period of three months—a sort of super consolidated lifespan—I experienced the pain of a new birth (my rebirth), toddler-like clinging to my old sense of life, the individuation of adolescence as I reset my system to allow for a new narrative, shedding the unspoken family secret that clouded my identity and emerging as a new adult. Carl Jung introduced the concept of synchronicity as meaningful coincidences that seem to have no apparent connection. I understand now that I experienced this discovery because I also had the tools to deal with it through my training as a therapist and Jewish upbringing that encourages exploration and curiosity.

I lost the father who raised me 21 years ago and have desperately missed having a father in my life. Now I have the opportunity to have a new father relationship. Having been an only child, the most exciting part is finding a brother—the older brother I always wanted. We met a few months after I met our father, inciting more transitions, more beginnings, more adjustment. Also more milestones, including his participation in my son’s Bar Mitzvah—just the sort of significant turning point that bonds family together.

I now get to be part of the clan and introduce them to the tribe too. Mazel tov!Jodi Klugman-Rabb is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Marin and Napa Counties. She specializes in connecting with clients on a humorous and practical level, helpful when specializing in ADHD, trauma/EMDR, and parental identity discovery. She is a long time Jew and new Scot. A wife of 20+ years, she’s the mom of two funny and awesome kids. Connect with her at her website or on Facebook.  

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

By Kevin GladishOn May 26, 2015, thanks to a change in Ohio law, I received a copy of my original birth certificate in the mail. That day, I finally learned a truth that I had long suspected but denied my entire life — that I was adopted. I was 43 years old.

Six weeks later, I began writing and speaking publicly about it. And I haven’t really stopped.

I had no idea then how writing and storytelling would save me. In those first days, my words were raw and filled with both a newfound freedom and a newfound grief. Learning that I was, in fact, adopted, was like putting on prescription glasses for the first time after years of not even knowing I couldn’t see. But it also meant seeing how long I’d been lied to and what believing those lies had cost me.

I posted my blog to Facebook and waited. At first, my confessional ramble felt like a selfish act of rebellion. Until then, I’d only told a few people what I’d learned. I knew that the news would come as a shock to most — not so much that I was adopted, but that I had only just now found out.

It was embarrassing, like finally admitting that I’d been pretending to laugh along with a joke that I never got, a joke that was on me the whole time. And yet there was also a relief. Despite how I felt, I knew it was not my fault. I simply could not fathom that the father I loved and trusted my whole life, a man I still today sometimes miss terribly despite everything, could look me in the eye when we were both grown men and lie. But that’s what he did. Having seen one too many clues, I’d finally gotten the guts to ask him if I was adopted.

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

I had a decision to make, and I did what I think a lot of people do when confronted with whether to believe someone they love. I chose to ignore the growing mountain of evidence: photos and timelines that made no sense, memory fragments, and my own reflection in the mirror. I chose to believe my father.

None of this changed what I’d always felt inside. I’d spent a lifetime averting my eyes and changing the subject whenever the conversation turned to family ancestry, a topic that inexplicably made me uneasy. I’d say I was mostly Slovak (I know now I’m mostly Irish) and taught myself to repeat lines like, “I take after Mom. My sister takes after Dad.” In truth, I looked like neither, and deep down I’d always felt like a fraud playing badly at a game of charades.

That first blog post was read by hundreds of people and passed on. I got calls asking if I was OK. People connected me with online support groups of other late-discovery adoptees, with whom I shared more. And for the first time, I felt a layer of loneliness I never even knew existed begin to fall away. I began to relate to people, for the first time, as me.

Of course this was also frightening. At times I was seized with sudden irrational panics squeezing my throat and chest. I imagined losing everyone, being rejected and abandoned for telling the truth. I was sure that somewhere a meeting would be called to decide that I had stepped out of line and needed to be punished. And though my father by this time was gone, and my mother was in the grip of severe dementia, I still believed there would be dire consequences for exposing the truth.

None of this happened, of course. It was all in my mind. But such is the power of deeply held shame.

Until I began telling my own story, I’d been a character in someone else’s made-up tale. It may have been a nice story, but it wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t true. And just as I had been putting my health at risk each time I walked into a doctor’s office and wrote down someone else’s family medical history instead of my own, I was making myself soul sick every time I repeated it.  Now, I could finally start to get better.

It would be a while before I could begin to trust myself. My first instinct, to this day, is to assume that I am always wrong. “You need to listen to your gut,” I’ve been told, and it’s good advice. But what if you’d spent a lifetime convincing yourself that your gut was telling you lies? Journaling and meditation help, along with honest friends I trust. But I’ve got a ways to go.

Years later, I am still new at this. Every word I write and speak of my truth is a battle against self-doubt and uncertainty. But that’s precisely why I keep doing it, long after some would prefer I “get over it.” Again and again, I am saying: “This is me. This is true.” And every once in a while, someone will say, “Thank you. Your story helped me.” I hear not only from other late-discovery adoptees but also from those who are healing from their own family secrets and inherited shame. I listen, and our stories become a conversation, one that saves us both.

Of course there’s always a risk in telling a true story. Not everyone will want to hear it. But someone, somewhere, will need to hear it, just as badly as you need to tell it. I hope you will. I’m listening too.Kevin Gladish is a late-discovery adoptee, writer, and storytelling performer living in Chicago. He started documenting his discovery and search for birth family soon after finding out he was adopted at the age of 43 and is working on a full-length solo performance piece that is yet unnamed. He’ll take suggestions. Check out his blog, A Story with No Beginning: A Late Discovery Adoption Journey.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

By Cory GoodrichI look in the mirror now and I see the face I have always seen — same Disney princess eyes, same prominent nose. The hair color changes with my whim, but it’s still mine, straight, fine, and always out of control.

I look in the mirror, but now I also see someone else’s face staring back at me. His face. It unnerves me.

By the time I was born, my mother already had three children who looked strikingly like their father: blond and angular, small eyes, narrow nose. When I emerged, the doctor took one glance and said, “Well Ernie, you finally got one that looks like you!”

She repeated this over and over throughout my life: You look like your mother. She wanted that story etched deep in my brain so that when I questioned my dark hair, my unusual nose, or my short, curvy build so unlike my lanky siblings’, I would say, oh, that comes from Mama.

But it didn’t.

Those features came from my father. My real father. The man who was not the same father as the one my brothers and sister had. The truth was as plain as the nose on my face. Literally. My nose was the Garnett nose, not the Goodrich nose — and my mother knew it. In order to conceal that obvious truth, she built her own narrative so that when I questioned the differences I secretly suspected on a deep, unconscious level, she could repeat it as a mantra. You look like me, you look like me, you look like me.

I discovered the truth shortly after my fifty-first birthday. I was the result of an affair and everyone in my family knew that I was not really a Goodrich. Everyone but me.

And so now, when I stare at my face in the mirror, I see his features, not my mother’s, not even my own. I marvel that this newfound knowledge has the power to change my self-perception so entirely, even though I have been me for half a century. Why should learning that my father was not the man who raised me have the power to change how I see myself — to throw me into an identity crisis of epic proportions?

Damned if I know.

I look through my childhood photos, searching for clues, or maybe to try to find the person that I used to be, and I’m struck by how sad “little Cory” always appears. I think back to those formative years and I remember that ever-present sense of loss and sadness that I always felt but could never understand.

Children intuit things. They are so much more observant and aware than we give them credit for. There was a part of me that knew I was different from my siblings, but I didn’t understand why, and then I would feel guilty for even having those feelings. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t fit in? Why did I think of myself as an outsider? Why did I self-inflict so much of the blame for my parents’ eventual divorce?

Because I knew, deep down, that my very existence was the reason. Because children know.

I look at my childhood photos and I see the little girl that I was and I want to hug her. I want to comfort her and tell her, It’s not your fault.

I want to tell her that she feels different because she is different, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong.

I want to tell her she is a gift, a miracle, a blessing that came from the love between two people — and just because those two people didn’t end up living happily ever after together doesn’t change that. She is their happily ever after.

I want to hold her and say, You are not the cause of your parents’ divorce. They have their own lives to live, their own choices to make. This is not on you.

I’d tell her she will grow up to be an empathetic warrior chick who writes and sings and paints and acts and has two little girls of her own that she protects fiercely. She will be a good mother. I’d tell her: You are going to be okay. You are loved.

And then I realize, all these things I would gladly say to my childhood self my fractured adult self needs to hear too. Can I look at my reflection — at my Franken-Cory mixture of DNA — and give her the same compassion? Can I say those same words to myself?

This will become my mantra. It’s not your fault. You’re going to be okay. You are loved.— Cory Goodrich is an actress, singer-songwriter, painter, writer, autoharp player, and collector-of-weird-instruments who lives in the Chicagoland area. Check out her website, blog, and recordings at www.coryshouse.com and her paintings on Instagram@corygoodrich.Severance is not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

On Venmo: @Cory-Goodrich

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

By Laura McMillianAs a teen, I’d once imagined I had a secret identity. Little did I know that I was right.

All my life, I’d learned to live with what could be described as a pervasive form of impostor syndrome — a sense that I was never fully able to know or be myself, whoever that was. Sure, I recognized certain stable personality traits in myself, such as kindness, rationality, humble priorities, and interest in the well-being of others. But they weren’t enough for me to fully know who I was on a gut level. I could also list all the factual pieces of information about myself, including the good, the bad, and the neutral — my ethnicities, behavioral and emotional tendencies, intellect, biases, tastes, political and religious views, and personal principles. But the sum of these facts never quite added up to me feeling like a full person.

I craved an understanding of the core aspects of myself and sought it by asking my parents about themselves and their family histories and by trying to understand my psychology and physiology through clinical testing and professional feedback. Still, something was always missing. Why? How could I fill it in and gain the self-confidence I should have had? The mysterious identity gap had me grasping at straws for all my young adult and adult life.

As I became older, the identity gap closed a little bit, and by the time I was in my mid-thirties, I might have felt as if I were 80% of a complete, knowable person. That missing 20% remained like a chronic pain I’d learned to live with and was resigned to always having. I still suffered from confusion in my career and relationships, and there seemed to be no answer or solution. But being stubbornly genuine, I never put up a false persona so that others could more easily grasp me. Those who did grasp and befriend me seemed to share a similar sense of alienation.

When I was 34, a 23andMe DNA test revealed that I was not genetically related to my dad, leading me to conclude that I had likely been donor conceived. Once I overcame the initial shock and denial, I felt as if a new door had opened. Finally, there was hope for a way out of my inexplicably confused sense of self. I’d always loved my dad and never suspected or hoped not to be related to him, but I chose to view this development in as positive a light as possible. This new knowledge offered me the chance to get answers about why I was the way I was — why I was different in personality and thinking style from the parents who raised me. Generational difference was never a sufficient explanation. Being donor conceived absolutely was.

The drive to identify half of my origins came over me like a tornado; this new and all-consuming obsession swept up everything in my world. The human mind naturally seeks completion, and mine very badly wanted it. For three years, I underwent trials and tribulations that failed to give me definite answers.

Finally, when my biological father appeared in my AncestryDNA test match list, I was able to walk through the door that had opened three years earlier. His four daughters, who didn’t know he’d been a sperm donor, had purchased the test as a gift, ironically, for Father’s Day. He hadn’t been expecting to discover offspring; he’d simply been looking to further explore his genealogy. Just as I had done, he reacted with denial and skepticism. But once the reality settled in, he was very excited to have found me and happy to get to know me.

The hopes that had been raised by deducing that I’d been donor conceived were fulfilled by getting to know my biological father. It’s been a wonderful and remedial experience, not only because he’s an incredibly kind and warm person, but also because learning about my genetic paternal origins has changed me for the better. After first spending time with him, I immediately felt a shift at my core. At age 37, that ineffable part of myself that had always felt missing finally appeared in its proper place. It felt as if something at the back of my mind was finally healing. There was both emotional relief and a physical sensation of calm — an unprecedented feeling of serenity and wholeness. I think my levels of oxytocin (the cuddle hormone) went through the roof during that trip, just from being with him. Before, I’d felt like a house with only half a foundation. Now, with a whole foundation, I feel complete and stronger than ever.

One of the clearest changes relates to how I deal with difficult people. In the past, when people were at odds with me in any way, my sense of self felt threatened, as I was easily thrown off balance. I avoided confrontation at almost all costs, with the exception of those rare occasions when I was completely confident about my position. I was afraid of being tongue-tied due to all the second-guessing and self-doubt, too easily believing others’ insulting statements or comments intended to correct my errors, at least until I later analyzed the situation. Speaking out usually wasn’t worth the risk, and I missed out on some important opportunities to stand my ground. I thought I’d always be that way, no matter how much therapy or self-development work I did. But now that I’m certain of who I am, my sense of self is tethered in place, allowing me to stand firmly when I’m challenged or mistreated. Or, if I really am wrong about something, I’m more comfortable accepting and admitting it, then moving on. This actually makes me more relatable and likable to others. While I try to choose my battles wisely and to be tactful, I’m no longer frightened by challenging conversations. For the first time, expressing myself is starting to feel completely natural and comfortable. I’m unafraid to be fully assertive, and even my professional confidence has improved. Putting myself out there isn’t so scary anymore. The self-consciousness and excessive self-inhibition have evaporated.

Not only were these changes instantaneous, but they’ve also been enduring and will likely last for the rest of my life. I’ll always be grateful for my biological father’s warm reception, alongside my upbringing by loving parents.Laura McMillian, PhD, CPC, ACC, is a certified professional coach who provides services to donor conceived individuals, donors, and parents. She lives in Hideout, Utah with her loving spouse Kevin and their 3 small dogs. Learn more about her practice here.