By Candy Wafford“Dad had the same color green eyes,” my brother said as he slid into the booth across from me. I was meeting him and my sister for the first time, and as much as we were trying to keep things light, it was awkward. I took a deep breath, willing myself to relax, and smoothed the navy sundress I chose to wear for an occasion that was casual yet monumental. I smiled and looked at my new brother’s face—the face of a stranger—yet one in which I saw a whisper of familiarity. Squirming in my chair, I realized I could be talking about my own face, one I barely recognized anymore.

How did I get here? I’d taken a DNA test for fun, never imagining it would change my life and my identity. Finding out that my dad—the man I grew up thinking was responsible for my thick hair and long skinny feet—was not my biological father rocked my world and led me on a journey of tearing myself apart and putting myself back together again.

Stumbling across the word ecotone recently, I learned it is the area between two biological places with characteristics of each. A marsh, the boundary between water and land, is an ecotone. Like a marsh that is part this and part that, I too, am an ecotone.

Finding out the truth of my paternity was a gradual process; I was like an archaeologist painstakingly cleaning layers of dirt from an artifact. First were the DNA test results with unexpected heritage. This led to examining my existing family tree, each climb up it leading to dead ends. DNA testing companies notify you when your DNA matches someone else in their databases, and as I began to receive these notifications, the names of the matches were foreign. I realized something was out of place, and my gut was telling me it was me. I began receiving messages from my DNA family, each one kind and inquiring, as they too were trying to make me fit.

Eventually, suspicions turned to proof, and my biology shifted. I was out of place. Unlike tectonic shifts that move the Earth’s plates either toward or away from each other, finding out that I biologically belong somewhere else, simultaneously moved me away from one place and toward another.

At times I felt adrift, clinging to what I had always known about myself and my family, and at others time slowly swimming to this new place, like a chunk of an iceberg breaking off and floating alone in a dark blue sea. Often exhilarated and sometimes exhausted, I felt like I was straddling two places, two families. Not really fitting into either. Bits and pieces of each floating inside me, like the delicate snow in a globe before it settles to reveal the scene that had been hidden.

Someone asked me recently if I had suspected anything growing up. I didn’t. No one did. I had often wondered why I was different, but attributed it to being a middle child or maybe to my parents’ divorce or my mother’s death. Never questioning made the surprise even more jarring, a lightning bolt striking the relative calm of my life.

I played it cool when relaying the news to my siblings, the ones that I grew up with, each one shocked, because none of us had questioned my place. “You always were different than us,” said my brother, upon finding out we didn’t share the same father. And I was different than my family, but the differences weren’t startling. They were subtle, like one of those which-one-doesn’t-belong puzzles where you squint to find small differences like an extra stripe on a tie or one sleeve longer than the other.

As my new truth sunk in, I began seeing evidence that this other part of me had been there all along. My husband and I were on vacation in Lisbon and had spent a hot and sticky day sightseeing in the city. As we stepped into the cool air of our rental, I spied myself in a mirror, my hair, curly and wild, a halo of frizz from the humidity. “We should have known, just from my hair,” I said wistfully to my husband as he brushed past. And all those summers growing up, before parents slathered their little ones with sunscreen, it had been the Mediterranean blood running through my veins that protected my fair skin as it became the color of honey, while my sister’s skin turned as red as a berry. A hundred little signs.

Now when I see snapshots of my past, I feel a confusing jumble of emotions—sadness, anger, and melancholy—as tears sting my eyes. I pore over the photos, looking for things that didn’t belong in one place and those I found in the other place. I’ve become a new version of myself. An ecotone adapts and absorbs elements of two places; so had I.

I’ve made peace with who I am, but I often feel like a shadowy figure in both families, not fully belonging to either. I have eleven siblings, but none with whom I share both a mother and a biological father. This once stirred feelings of loneliness, but I now see it makes me unique, and I am working on appreciating it. I still search my face, with eyes the same color of green as a father I’ll never meet, but my face is my own again. And just as an ecotone is rich and diverse because it is made up of two lands, so am I.Candy Wafford lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and her cat, Roxie. When not selling software, she loves baking, traveling, spending time with her daughter, and eating ice cream. Her memoir-in-progress explores how she was able to find acceptance and release her grief from early mother loss and finding out she was an NPE. Follow her on Instagram @whereivebeentravel and check out her blog about travel and food, Where I’ve Been Travel.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…

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By Lana BrammannI recently visited Earth Sanctuary—a perfect place to reconnect with my soul and nature. There I found peaceful ponds, sacred stone circles, a labyrinth, Tibetan prayer and Native American medicine wheels—all nestled in a protected forest.  Perhaps, I thought, it would also be the perfect place to connect with my recently discovered BioDad, Michael,  who passed in 2017. After my NPE (not parent expected) discovery and after having found his family, I understood my gravitation toward all things Native American. Visiting this land, with its sacred Native spaces, had me hopeful and happy for a soulful adventure.

Leaves crunched beneath my feet on the winding path. Deep breaths and deliberate steps… inhale… crunch, crunch, crunch … Exhale… crunch, crunch, crunch. Wearing low-tread sneakers instead of hiking boots was an intentional choice that forced a more mindful gait on the muddy, slightly hilly trail. At each activity location I said a prayer, left an offering, and felt lighter. The Native American prayer place surprised me. It felt familiar, though I’d never been to or seen one. Intuitively, I peeled off my sneakers and socks, then stepped barefoot on the flat rock at the pond’s edge. With hands outstretched and palms up, I closed my eyes and thought of Michael. In my mind’s eye, I had a strong vision of the man whose genes created me. His face was clear from photographs shared by his family. The stories they’d generously shared of his struggles and joy created both peace and sorrow. One deep breath and a tear ran down my cheek. Two breaths, another tear.

I told him how sorry I was that he’d passed before I found him. I explained that for a year and a half I’d begged my mother for information; yet she insisted he was not my father. I asked Michael if he knew I was his child during those two times, 47 years ago, when he came out of his home in an attempt to speak with my mother and peered around her at me. I thanked him for helping me find my new house (it was nothing short of a miracle) and for watching over me, especially as I navigated this traumatic discovery. I purged silent tears and years of sorrow for Michael, the father who created me, and for Skip, the assumed father forced into a teenage marriage then also withheld from me after his divorce from my mother. Tears fell for my mother’s family, who turned their backs, and for both fathers’ families, who have recently enveloped me in love and warmth. Tears fell for puzzle pieces that finally fit together.

As if to indicate I’d overstayed my welcome, a squirrel eventually emerged from the bushes a couple feet from my toes and watched for a few moments before scampering behind me to the place where offerings were left. It’s as if the squirrel was saying, “Okay, that’s enough… go on your way.” I left an offering of sage and thanked Michael and the squirrel before putting on my socks and shoes and continuing along the path.

I took solace in the realization that Michael is in the rustle of wind in the trees, the solitary call of the owl every night at dusk, and the shimmer of the lake. He’s in the notes from my cello, flute, and mountain dulcimer. He’s in the activities that bring me comfort and joy, which seem so foreign to the rest of my assumed family.

His relatives have shared that he was flawed and far from perfect, but a very kind and loving human. He loved nature, was musical, and his soul ran deep with his Native American heritage. He and my mother couldn’t have been more opposite. With this knowledge, certain memories with her take on a different significance. It makes me giggle to recall the time I dragged her on a surprise adventure through two inches of mud for hours of mushroom hunting. What makes the recollection so sweet now is knowing he would have relished the spectacle with impish joy, as my very urban, very perception-conscious mother had no option but to indulge me by investigating fungus in the mud.

Although I didn’t know then I was an NPE, when I was a child I was confused by interests and perspectives different from those of the family in which I was raised. I was kept from Michael, and, ultimately, from Skip, the man assigned the role of father. I’m grateful to Skip for stepping in as a father when he had no obligation to do so, and to Michael’s family for sharing stories, photographs, and accepting me as if I’d been part of their world all along. I just wish I’d met him myself. For a child who had no fathers, who would have thought I’d be blessed as an adult to have had two?Lana Brammann grew up in Orange County, California, where she never quite fit in. She now thrives in caffeinated bliss with the natural abundance of Whidbey Island, Washington. She provides love and sanctuary to unwanted tortoises, retired racing greyhounds, and parrots. The parrots, like Brammann, sometimes say things they shouldn’t. She’s a member of the International Society of Genetic Genealogists. Look for her on Facebook.BEFORE YOU GO…

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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 Billie BakhshiDear Dad,

In my dream house, you are there.

You were there all along. Always.

You carried me on your shoulders and taught me how to ride a bike, how to swim, how to fish. You told bedtime stories and silly dad jokes to make me laugh.

You let me hand you tools when you fixed the car. You took my teeth from under my pillow when you thought I was sleeping and replaced them with crisp dollar bills.

You smiled, standing there in your best suit as I came down the stairs in my fancy dress and Mary Janes, ready for my first father-daughter dance at school.

I made you pictures that you hung on the wall at your office and bought you ties for Father’s Day.

I made your coffee just the way you like on Sunday mornings and brought you iced tea when you mowed the lawn. We watched old movies and munched popcorn.

You helped me with my math homework and comforted me when my first crush broke my heart. We went out for ice cream. You taught me how to drive a stick shift.

You cheered at my graduations and teared up as you walked me down the aisle on my wedding day. We danced to “Daddy’s Little Girl” at the reception.

When I found out I was pregnant, you were thrilled. You helped my husband paint the baby’s room and put the crib together. You paced the hallway when I was in labor and you were the first person in the room to kiss your grandchild.

You came over so I could take a shower since the baby kept me up all night. I found you, with your first granddaughter nuzzled up on your chest, both of you sound asleep on the sofa.

You were there for every holiday. Every birthday. Every grandparents day at school, choral concert, dance recital.

You made us feel loved.

When you got sick, I was there. I held your hand.

I made meals. Cleaned up. Went with you to doctors appointments. Sat in waiting rooms while you had radiation. Gave you popsicles and angel mints during chemo.

I sat by your bedside and told you I love you. I kissed you on the forehead, and covered you in quilts. I was there when you breathed your last. You weren’t alone in the ER, because you were my dad, and I was your daughter. You knew you were loved. You knew you were the best dad, the best granddad.

But I don’t live in my dream house.

You didn’t either.

We never got to experience those things I dreamed of. Not even a phone call to say goodbye. And I don’t know what hurts more—not having those experiences or having to face that there will never be any experiences, ever, because you’re gone now. We ran out of time. I was alone then and I’m alone now.

And this will just be one last letter I’ll have sent that will never get a reply.

BillieBillie Bakhshi is now a fatherless daughter, a second generation NPE whose maternal grandmother was illegally adopted. Her mother was impounded at Booth Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers in Philadelphia, where Bakhshi’s sister, Donna was given up for adoption through Catholic Charities. Bakhshi has half a dozen (maybe more) half siblings from her father. Where are they all? She’d love to know, too. Bakhshi lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband, four children, a cockatoo, tuxedo cat, and neurotic chihuahua mix. You can follow her on Facebook and her writing at The Family Caretaker. See her previous essay here.

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By Billie BakhshiDear Donna,

How’s my big sister? I’ve fantasized about asking you this ever since I found out you existed.

I thought I was the oldest of our mother’s children, but then there you were.

I was 24 years old, nursing my second-born on the sofa when our mother suddenly burst out and said, “I’m not going to my grave with this.” She revealed that she’d been 17, unwed, and pregnant in 1967 and had been sent to live at the Booth Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers. The unnamed boyfriend wouldn’t marry her, so her parents made arrangements for her to be squirreled away, protecting the family from shame.

She lived in a dorm. Think “Madeline” — remember, the children’s book? Except all the girls were pregnant and weren’t to talk to each other to preserve their anonymity. When they walked outside — not in two straight lines as in Madeline — they each wore a slim gold wedding band so they could be passed off as respectable, married, mothers to be.

At Catholic Charities, unwed mothers were “prepared” to relinquish their babies. They were told they were saving the baby from the stigma of being a “bastard” and were being given chance at a re-do in life.

She named you Donna, after the song by Ritchie Valens, which she heard playing on the radio when she was there at the home for unwed mothers. You were whisked away after being born. She saw you a year later, at a relinquishment hearing, and she described you as tall and blonde.

I was stunned by my mother’s confession. I wanted to find you. You’d been there all along — the big sister I always wanted. But then our mother shut down and she’s refused to say another word since.

Armed with your birthdate, the name of the hospital, and the adoption agency, I began to investigate. Booth Maternity Center was gone, and St. Joseph’s University had bought the property. Catholic Charities would not release any information. Sealed adoption. They allowed me to write you a letter. If you ever went looking for it, you’d find me. Maybe. Vital Statistics was another dead end. I posted on the International Soundex Reunion Registry and hoped. With each passing year, my hope of finding you has dimmed.

I imagine you’re the lucky one. The wanted one. Your adoptive parents must have really, really wanted you and fallen in love with you at first sight. Mom was beautiful when she was young, and she always had an eye for a gorgeous man. I just know you’re gorgeous, too. How your mom and dad must love you. I know that not all adoption stories are the fairy tales the Hallmark Channel wants us to believe they are, but I hope yours was.

Meanwhile, I was our mother’s second attempt at keeping a man who didn’t want her. You escaped my fate. Maybe my existence was a constant reminder to my mother that she was unwanted. She never loved me. My first memory of her is of her beating me. I learned to keep my distance, to lay low.

She was unpredictable, her mental health an issue since childhood and exacerbated by drug use. Joan Crawford had nothing on her, and I became the codependent caregiver.

At 17, I was so starved for love that I found myself in the very same circumstances that our mother had been in all of those years earlier — unmarried and pregnant. And she tried to inflict the same heartbreak on me, making calls to maternity homes and adoption agencies to make arrangements for me.

I didn’t know our mother’s history at that point, Donna. I only knew that I could not live without my baby. But when I learned about you, when I fully realized the depth of our mother’s cruelty — being so willing to inflict on me the same heartbreak, completely unnecessarily in the 1990s — it was more than I could bear. I distanced myself for many years.

She never saw my daughter, except in pictures, until Serena was 4. She completely missed the first milestones. I couldn’t bring my daughter near her. What if she gave Serena away when my back was turned?

Cody was the first newborn our mother saw me interact with. I think seeing me, blissfully breastfeeding, triggered her. I was happy. She was not. Her response — her resentment and anger that I had a baby and a husband while she had neither — was, “You have a sister. No, I won’t tell you anything about her. Now stew.”

Our mother is no longer a part of my life. I am finally healing. That said, what do I bring to the table?

• A completely unhappy family history of intergenerational trauma, abuse, and mental illness.
• An obsession with breaking the curse of said intergenerational trauma, a happy marriage, and four great kids who would adore having an Auntie Mame. (I warned you that I fantasize.)

 Confession: I’m so afraid of what I might find in you. Are you plagued with the same mental health problems and addictions as our mother? Will this information disrupt your life or hurt you? Because I don’t want that. No, I can’t help you bridge a relationship with her. Please don’t ask. I burned that bridge permanently.

I only wish you love, joy, and peace, dear sister, even if we never meet.

I’m on 23&Me and hitting Ancestry next.

Love,

BillieBillie Bakhshi lives with her husband and children in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can read more of her musings at her blog, The Family Caretaker.

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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

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By Jim GrahamOn November 28, 1993, my wife, Melodie, dropped a bombshell. We were having dinner at the elegant Aqua restaurant in San Francisco, 2,200 miles from our home in Oyster Bay Cove, New York. “I’m going to tell you something you’ll find disturbing,” she said over cocktails. “John Graham was not your father. Your father was Father Thomas Sullivan, a Catholic priest.” I heard her statement as if it were a line in a novel, not part of a conversation between two ordinary people over dinner. She looked at me as though she feared my reaction, so I took her seriously. “When your mother left Buffalo with you as a toddler, the priest accompanied you,” she went on. “He was domiciled at Holy Angels Parrish in Buffalo. Private detectives were hired, and the three of you were located 10 months later.”That conversation ignited my 25-year journey for the truth — a truth kept from me for 48 years. My wife had no other details to offer. The information was given to her by an individual I thought was my cousin. As my story unfolded, I discovered I’m not related to the family in whose household I was raised, nor was I adopted by them. A scheme to hide my true origin was orchestrated by the church to save them from scandal during a conservative time in our history, post-World War II.

John Graham, the man I called Dad, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 1979 at the age of 69. He divorced my mother in 1948, when I was just three, and never remarried. During my childhood, my mother lived in New York City, while I lived with John Graham and his family in Buffalo. The scheme was designed to make it appear as though I were the third child of John and Helen (O’Connell) Graham, when, in reality, I was the son of a priest. All the principals (Graham, my mother, and my father) died without having told me. The power the church exerted over these individuals as they took the secret to their graves is stunning.

I never would have known what I’m sharing now if it hadn’t been for an act of retribution toward me. Earlier in 1993, I had disparaged the name of John Graham in a conversation with a member of his family. Graham treated me poorly throughout my childhood, and as a result I left his household at age 18 in 1963. My comments circled back to Otto, Graham’s brother, whom I always thought was my uncle. In defense of his brother, Otto broke the church’s code of silence that others had honored for half a century. He had attempted to hurt me, but in retrospect, I see he gave me a gift. The reason for the dysfunction I experienced as a child had become clear.

I sensed uncovering the coverup wouldn’t be easy. The first place I looked for answers was with the Graham family. I met with Otto and his sister Kathryn, whom I had believed to be my aunt. The church likely advised them how to deal with me at the meeting as they attempted to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Kathryn uttered a well-rehearsed talking point as she slid a newspaper obituary across the kitchen table and said, “This man may be your father, but only the principals know, and they are dead.” Although the man in the photo was much older than I was, his eyes, nose, lips, and chin were startlingly familiar. Otto and Kathryn offered no further information.

The more I was denied my history, the more adamant I became about claiming it. I eventually knocked on the doors of my father’s order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

A priest I encountered, Father Savage, a contemporary of my father, said, “Whatever we discuss in this room will stay in this room.”

“Then you know,” I said.

“Yes, I know.”

“How do you know?”

“You look just like him!” he admitted.

My wife, who attended this meeting, winced at Father Savage’s closing statement: “Forget the injustices of the past. You are relatively young and you have good genes, so get on with the rest of your life.” This cruel comment — his way of saying “get on your way and don’t come back” — only fueled my desire to know more.

It was inconceivable to me that the church denied my mother and me our basic human rights. They took me from her when I was a toddler and ensured I would never know my father. We were pawns in their self-serving, scandal-saving plot and were swept under the rug. Following the revelation, I had a new purpose in life: to expose the power and corruption of the institution that trampled on our lives.

For years, I followed the paper trail, collecting a treasure trove of documents. I interviewed numerous priests, nuns, and laity on my journey. Those who knew my father were stunned by my likeness to their old friend. I witnessed a thread of fear running throughout members of the church, each afraid to be known as the whistle-blower. Even today, a 100-year-old nun who told me much about my history wishes to remain anonymous, fearing she’ll discredit her order. I’ve twice written the superior general of the order, domiciled in Rome, offering him the opportunity as a leader of the church to do the right thing — to be transparent. The responses were terse, likely drafted by a canon lawyer: “We have no records of Father T.S. Sullivan fathering a child.”

On January 8, 2018, I had a phone conversation with the provincial of the USA Oblate Order, Fr. Louis Studer. Like Father Savage, he was not pastoral. He badgered me over and over during our call, repeating, “You think you’re Father Sullivan’s son, but you can’t prove it.” Years ago, I‘d thought about asking permission to exhume Thomas Sullivan’s body to prove he was my father, but I quickly dismissed the thought, assuming the Oblate Order would have thought I was grandstanding. Plus, I knew it wouldn’t allow it anyway. But after staring down the church for 25 years, and following my heated phone conversation with Fr. Studer, I wrote to the provincial requesting an exhumation. To my surprise, two weeks later, my request was granted, provided the exhumation would be at my expense and there would be no photos or filming and no press on the Tewksbury, Massachusetts cemetery grounds. To this day, I don’t believe the church thought I would go through with it.

On June 18, 2018, the day after Father’s Day, I had my father’s body exhumed for a DNA comparison. The results came back 99.999% positive that Father Thomas Sullivan was my father. Not surprisingly, I have not heard from the Oblate hierarchy since. What could they say to a man who looks like Father Sullivan and who spent 25 years knocking on their door? What could they say after an exhumation when we both knew what the results would be?

To my knowledge, I’m the only son of a priest in the world to have had his father’s remains exhumed to prove paternity.— Jim Graham, who lives with his wife, Melodie, in Seneca, South Carolina, is writing a memoir about his quest to find the truth. Follow his story on Twitter @jim_jimgraham45 and https://www.facebook.com/jim.graham.7739814 and listen to him discuss his journey on “Family Secrets with Dani Shapiro.” Access the episode at https://www.familysecretspodcast.com/podcasts/the-very-image.htm

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By B.K. JacksonIn a black and white photograph with deckled edges, I stand grasping the railing of my crib, my eyes peering over my fingers and staring into the camera lens. I like to pretend my mother took this picture on our last day together — that she snipped a slender strand of hair that fell down my forehead and later taped it to the back of the photograph. Maybe she tucked the photo into a small silver box she carried with her move after move, always placing it on the highest shelf in her closet, underneath a pile of sweaters. Maybe each year she took it out on my birthday, remembering how I fussed when she cut the lock of hair or the way I clutched her scarf trying to make her stay, leaving a sticky handprint and a sweet-sour milk scent that still slays her in her dreams. Maybe over time the photo grew brittle and creased, with flecks of emulsion wearing off and its corners crumbling. Maybe many years later, when her children became old enough to snoop, she took the box down from her hiding place and held the photo over the sink, struck a match to it and watched it buckle and warp, the flame moving inward from its white deckled borders, the fire enveloping me in my crib. Maybe she dropped it in the sink but couldn’t take her eyes off it until there was nothing left but charred confetti. Maybe she thought that immolation would annihilate the memories and let her leave me — us — finally, in the past.

Maybe. I’ll never know. For 50 years, she was a mystery to us while we were skeletons in her cupboard. She left no evidence of my brother and me or her marriage to my father. We had existed only as rumor to the six children born after she left us, children named as her sole survivors on the obituary I discovered three years after she died.

I wonder when we became a secret. There must have been a particular moment when she decided to tuck her past life away, like the photo in the box. Did she have to sever ties with everyone who knew her, who knew us? Did she walk away from her mother and father too? Did she expect we’d try to track her down and so covered her tracks? What did it cost her to keep us under wraps? After all, it’s not easy to shed one’s skin — to slough off the memories and never turn back. It takes work to put on a new face for strangers, paint over your history, scrape away your failings and regrets. It takes practice. Once you start keeping secrets, there’s no turning back. You have to pay attention to detail and remember what you tell people so you don’t trip yourself up. You have to be resolute, even when someone tender enough to consider loving you tries to pry open your heart and extract your deepest secrets.

Or maybe it took no effort at all. Maybe she simply started over and let her old life fade away. Let us fade away.

I don’t know what her truth was. Maybe she carried us in her heart like thorns. Maybe she buried her memories deep down only to have them rise back up, like grasping tendrils of a stubborn weed, like tiny hands reaching out to grab a scarf.

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