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Severance Magazine
Tag:

biological family

    Micro-MemoirsSpeak Out

    Ungrateful

    by bkjax November 20, 2021

    By Sherrie L. Kappa

    My biological mother met my biological father in Alexandria, Virginia. I was told she met him after she had locked her keys in her car and he was a local fireman who came to help her.

    I was born in 1961 in West Virginia and adopted by a family that had a 9-year-old biological daughter. My adoptive father was a coal miner and a pastor of a church, and my adoptive mother did not work.

    They had not planned to disclose my adoption to me, but I learned about it by accident when I was 13 years old and  found a letter my adoptive mother had written to another pastor’s wife in which she stated she had two adopted children—a teen daughter and a young son. My best friend was there with me and she confirmed that I was adopted and that everyone knew but me. Too scared to ask my often abusive, narcissistic mother, I waited until my father came home from work. He verified that it was true. He was a sweet man and hated lies. I think it was a relief to him.

    That weekend he took me to meet my biological mother. He said he’d met her when she was only a few months pregnant. She was a waitress in a bar, and he was at the bar, he said, trying to save souls. He told her that she should be taking better care of herself, and she told him that she didn’t want the child and that he could have it when it was born. He gave her his phone number. In September of that year, she called and told him I had come early and was sick. I’d been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, and the doctors transfused my blood. My biological mother signed the forms to relinquish me for adoption and left the hospital before my adoptive parents arrived to pay the hospital bill and bring me home.

    Several months after I found out about being adopted, I ran away to my biological mother’s home and met three half siblings. I learned that she’d also relinquished a 6-year-old son the same year I was born. My birthmother called my adoptive father to come pick me up and also called police to scare me into not coming back. Needless to say, I did not have any further contact with my birthmother until my older brother came looking for me when I was 16.

    My adoptive father had a heart attack and died that same year, after which my adoptive mother decided I needed to work to pay rent, so I attended high school during the day and worked a full-time job at night at the local hospital. On my days off, I cleaned for her. She took my entire check every month. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you’ve lived through it. She informed me that I would not be going to college; she wasn’t going to pay for a child that was not her blood.

    I graduated high school when I was 17, immediately married my brother’s best friend, and got out. About six months later, we moved to the same town in which my biological mother and her family lived. My biological mother adored my husband, and this paved the way for me to try to be a part of her life. I lived right up the street from her house for four years, and although she never once visited me, I was invited to her home on the rare occasion. I believe I valued those visits much more than she did

    I asked my birthmother who my father was. She said his name was Bennie H., he lived in Mockingbird, Texas, and worked for Bekins Transportation. She said he had blue eyes and his wife was Chinese, but she didn’t know much else. She’d  told him she was pregnant, and he took off. For many years I tried to find Bennie H. I called Bekins. I found out there is no Mockingbird, Texas, so called Information for towns all over the state. Most of the operators were kind; they would give me five numbers and five addresses at a time. I wrote nearly 100 letters. And when I had the money, I called as many numbers as I could.

    In the early 1980s, along came the Internet, and I wrote or called every Bennie H. I could find, without luck. Lots of Google searches, lots of Yahoo searches. I couldn’t find any Bennie H. in Texas.

    My life often interrupted my search, but I never gave up. I worked full time, divorced, re-married, and raised a son. I went back to school to obtain a degree, often working two jobs.

    Along came Facebook. Same searches. Nothing new.

    In 2016, my best friend and I discussed her search. She was looking for a grandfather, and she suggested I join a Facebook group for people using DNA to search for family; she also suggested several DNA testing sites that she was using. I sent my test to Ancestry and found a group on Facebook that had “search angels.” They pointed me toward several adoption registries, and I signed up with all of them.

    About three days later, I got an email that one of the Angels had found a Bennie H. in an old 1961 Dallas city registry.  And there he was, listed as living on Mockingbird Lane. As it turned out, this was actually the address of Bekins, his employer. He lied to my mother so she wouldn’t track him down. The “angel” also gave me information on a Bennie in Kansas and one in North Carolina.

    I called the number in North Carolina. It was the right one. I talked with his brother, and Bennie had been there all along, about a three-hour drive from my front door. He had died just eight months before my call. I talked to an aunt and uncle who told me about two sisters on the east coast and two in Texas, but they didn’t want to give me any other information. But I stalked, and within two days I had the married names and the telephone number of all four sisters.

    I called and I wrote to each of them. We talked and texted and became friends. A few months later, I met two of them and the uncle on the east coast, and we made plans for all five sisters to get together. They shared pictures of Bennie, and although he didn’t look like me, I tried really hard in my head to make my blue eyes look just like his. And the curl in my hair to match his. And in my mind, his father, my grandfather, looked so much like my son.

    I obtained his military records and learned that he has O+ blood, which I’m pretty sure my biological mother has as well. I am A negative—slightly rare, though not enormously so. So I called my maternal half-sister and asked if she thought our mother has type A blood. “Oh sure”, she says, “she does.”

    I’d been asking the eldest paternal sister to do take an Ancestry DNA test so I could see “sister” come up on my computer screen. While waiting on my own DNA test results, I built an extensive Ancestry tree, tracing Bennie all the way back to 1040, to the original “H.”

    Nine months into this journey, the eldest sister finally took the test.

    In the middle of this madness, I received my DNA test results and saw those Hs. Among my matches was a second cousin, Leslie, who contacted me. She wasn’t from the H family, she said. “We’re the C family and you are my cousin.” We puzzled back and forth about this for several months, but we couldn’t seem to agree on how we were related so I let it go.

    When my new paternal sister’s DNA results came in, they showed that we are not a match. They were Bennie’s children. I was not his child. We share cousins approximately six to eight generations back. We connect to the same H ancestors I observed among the 1,500 or so DNA matches. I cried. My new “not my sisters” cried. I have been looking for these girls all my life. I’d become attached. I loved them.

    But they don’t belong to me at all. They are not family. They told me it didn’t matter, but oh boy, it sure does.

    My mother at that point was old and sick so I didn’t call her directly to ask again who my biological father was. Instead, I called my maternal half-sister. She asked my mother, and my mother once again lied, insisting that Bennie H. was my father. She said the DNA was wrong and I was lying. I upset my mother, and my sister told me never to contact them again—any of them. A few cousins still talk to me on Facebook, but I won’t be getting any invitations to the family reunions.

    After crying on the phone to an Ancestry representative for nearly an hour, asking if my DNA results could somehow be wrong, the representative explained to me that DNA does not lie. With her help, I started over with my Ancestry DNA tree. My new tree had only two leaves—one for me and one for my biological mother. Within a day, new half-sister, Lisa, turned up in my matches. I contacted her, and she said it was possible that we were sisters, that her father had many extramarital affairs. But, she said, he was mean, an alcoholic, and a pedophile, and the four living siblings didn’t want anything to do with me. I cried more. My new family didn’t want to talk to me at all. They were ashamed that I was alive. Two others are already dead and don’t get an opinion. She gave me that one day in which to ask questions, which she answered, and then she blocked me on Ancestry and on Facebook, as did all her (my) other siblings and their children.

    I pull up my bootstraps and keep going on in this mad world.

    But I have my father’s name—the real one—William C. And pictures shared on Ancestry. In them is my face, my son’s face. There’s no denying this DNA. By gosh, I actually look like someone.

    I am one of 12 children between these two biological parents, and none other than my younger maternal half-brother wants me. He tries, but he has his own very full life with not a lot of time for a sister four hours away. He doesn’t want to get in between all the madness of my relationship with my maternal siblings and my biological mother, who don’t want me in their lives, but he and I do talk, and he is my one and only lifeline.

    My adoptive siblings, a brother and a sister, now no longer talk to me either. They told me years ago that I should not have tried looking for biological family, that I should have been happy with the one I had. They say that they know I never wanted to be in their family. (They’re most certainly right about that one.) So I’ve had to let them go as well.

    As for my friends and cousins, I wish they’d stop saying, “But at least you had a good family to raise you.” They only see what I have allowed them to see. I’ve gone through the gamut of emotions over this: anger—lots and lots of anger; grief over of losing someone I never met, over losing someone I looked for 40 years, over losing sisters that were not my sisters. I feel disconnected every single day.

    I’m not putting all this out here so anyone will feel sorry for me. My story is much nicer than that of many I have read. I now know my truth. I have a wonderful husband. He works hard, he loves me, and is my best friend. I have the very best son. He’s much like his dad—he works hard and he loves his momma. He has a hard time with relationships though; he’s had no family around him growing up—no aunts, uncles, cousins, or siblings. No one. Much like me. All alone, always. He doesn’t want children. And his aloneness makes me saddest of all.

    Sherrie L. Kappa lives in North Carolina with her husband and fur baby. She’s a medical staff professional and volunteers with a DNA research group. To date, she’s helped 34 individuals find and connect with their biological family.

    November 20, 2021 0 comments
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  • AdoptionArticles

    An End. A Beginning.
    Choosing a pseudonym for my birth mother

    by bkjax April 28, 2021
    April 28, 2021

    Once upon a time a little girl was born in a charity hospital in Hell’s Kitchen to an unwed mother. Her name was Gabriella Herman and she was adopted about six months later. Her name was changed and her identity was erased. Her birth certificate was dated two years after she was born. By the time she was six months old she’d had three mothers: a birth mother, a foster mother, and an adoptive mother. _____ My reunification with my birth mother began via a letter from Catholic Charities followed by another by Air Mail from my birth mother. To me it felt like a new beginning. Perhaps then it is fitting that our relationship would end with a letter. This time it was sent 25 years later and by certified mail. _____ The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book is my attempt at unwinding the story of my birth and identity through the lens of stories told to me by my birth mother. The book was accepted for publication on Mother’s Day 2020. The synchronicity was not lost on me. My debut! My first-born! My book baby! My mother––dead for decades––wasn’t here to celebrate my happy news, so I called my birth mother to tell her my book was about to be born. She was excited for me on the phone. She mailed me a congratulatory card. Inside she wrote; “You did it! Congratulations on getting your book in print in 2021. How wonderful! XOX.” She was fond of using the USPS and had a habit of sending me envelopes stuffed with news clippings, Harper’s articles she’d torn out of the magazine, and typed letters that contained sternly worded directives even though I hadn’t asked for her advice. I called these her “lectures.” I shrugged them off in the interest of maintaining a relationship with her. After all, she was the only mother I had left. _____ I use dolls as a window into my story by recreating photos from my baby book in my dollhouse. Doing this allowed me some distance from my fears. By playing with dolls I could examine those fears through a different lens. Dolls are used to understand trauma in myriad ways––“show me where he touched you,” or “point to where it hurts” or “can you show me where she hit you?” Memory born from trauma is full of dead ends. Shame is spring-loaded. My birth mother’s stories circled back on themselves: they were versions of a truth. When I brought up the shame and the trauma I felt as an adoptee, she said they were useless emotions.

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  • AdoptionEssays, Fiction, Poetry

    Who Do You Think I Am?

    by bkjax April 15, 2021
    April 15, 2021

    Growing up as an adoptee, I frequently fielded questions from friends and strangers alike. “Do you know who your real mother is?” “Do you think you look like your parents?” “What [ethnicity] are you?” The first two questions were easy to answer: My mother is my real mother.  No, I don’t look like either of them. But the third question hounded me my whole life. It speaks to a universal quest to identify with a group. And it speaks to the need of others to figure out who we are. For an adoptee, another question swirls around in the mix: Are we valid? On one hand, our identity is who we believe we are, and on the other it’s who others believe us to be. In essence, the identity question is two-part: ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who do you think I am?’ Adopted or not, we work to reconcile our personal vision of who we are versus who others believe we are. Yet when you’re adopted, there’s an added layer. For me, and I imagine for many adoptees, there’s a struggle to answer the question ‘Who are you?’ When others challenge our identity because of our adoption status, it’s difficult enough; but it’s further complicated by the fact that we have incomplete information about our genetic roots and, therefore, we can’t answer. And even when we get that information, we’re still left wondering how others view us. I was adopted at birth and didn’t know my birth ethnicity until I was an adult. Of course, I had the ethnicity of my adoptive family, but even that was muddled. Muddled, in part, because my parents were somewhat non-traditional in the way they raised me—without strong traditions, based on ethnicity or religion. My parents were raised Jewish, but did not consider themselves religiously Jewish. My mother explained that while we were not religiously Jewish, we were “ethnically Jewish.” What does that mean exactly? I love brisket and knishes. I know what a seder is (a Baptist friend corrected me on a few details). I picked up some Yiddish words listening to conversations between my grandmother and her friends. But does that make me Jewish? From a religious standpoint, it does not. In fact, according to Jewish law, adoption alone doesn’t make you the religion of your adoptive mother. As an adult I learned that my birth mother is Protestant, and children born to non-Jews and adopted by Jewish parents must go through rituals of conversion before they are considered Jewish. I did not.

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  • ArticlesNPEs

    Kinship: What Makes a Family?

    by bkjax March 24, 2021
    March 24, 2021

    There are moments in our lives when the coincidences of being a human in an often-discordant world can feel overwhelming. In the early 2000s, as a young graduate student, I examined the (then-new) assisted reproductive technologies and ideas of relatedness: how material (flesh and blood) and information (genes) are used to help define different anthropological kin structures. In short, I somewhat blindly argued that the primacy of the biological part of relatedness could be surmounted through “different” ways of relating to define family. In hindsight, it was complacent to exclude the biological from my anthropological study of family. Little did I know that almost 15 years later my life would collide with these notions, head-on. In late December 2020, I discovered through an at-home DNA test (gifted to me by one of my kin, nonetheless!) that I share no biological or genetic link with the man who, for 47 years, I believed to be my father. What’s more, the man with whom I do share half of my genetic material—and a remarkable physical likeness—has, for my entire life, been living with his family just miles away from my hometown and from the group of people I have always called my kin. There’s an idea in anthropology that kinship is a mutuality of being: kin are intrinsic to one another’s identity and existence. The relational nature of kinship, traditionalists argue, lies in the fact that all those who are “related” are connected through the lineage of the mother and the father and, therefore, share traits and qualities that can be traced through these parental origins: biological, cultural, communal, genetic. Such ideas of relatedness, which were once seen as fundamental, came under scrutiny in the 2000s as deterministic. Cultural critics argued kinship as outmoded altogether, particularly in light of assisted reproductive technologies such as invitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, gamete donation, and surrogacy. Today, however, the centrality of kinship to relatedness has been brought back to life, likely influenced by DNA testing. I’ve wondered lately whether this is because understanding ways of relating has come full-circle and we now recognize that while kinship and relatedness can be all-encompassing, the “intrinsic” nature of biology is still fundamental to a person’s identity? As an adult who inadvertently uncovered her misattributed parentage, I would argue that this is absolutely the case.

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  • ArticlesDNA & Genetic GenealogyDNA SurprisesSearch & Reunion

    Q & A With Investigator Christina Bryan

    by bkjax January 5, 2021
    January 5, 2021

    Christina Bryan has an impressive portfolio of skills that make her exceedingly good at her work as a genetic and family investigator, but it’s her tenacity that drives her success where others may fail. Based in Marin County, California, she helps clients across the country cope with life-altering DNA test results and shocking family surprises, untangling misattributed parentage discoveries and locating their biological family members. Whether working with adoptees, donor-conceived adults, or others who’ve had a misattributed parentage experience (MPE), she employs an array of investigative strategies and doesn’t stop until she’s solved a client’s puzzle. A Portland, Oregon native, Bryan moved to the Bay area to go to California State University, East Bay, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and became a performance analyst in the investment banking field. But after she took an autosomal DNA test in 2014, she found herself on a new career trajectory. She learned about the science of DNA, applied it to her own family tree, and began using her newfound skills to help others solve the puzzle of their parentage or better understand their ancestry. It quickly became apparent it wasn’t merely a hobby; it was a calling, as the nickname her clients have given her suggests—Super Sleuth. In 2016, she began taking on complex cases for high profile clients and performing international and historical research. She’s in demand not only for her persistence but also for her intuition, which has helped her solve cases for attorneys and law enforcement personnel. She’s also co-host, with Jodi Klugman-Rabb, of Sex, Lies & the Truth, an entertaining and informative podcast about DNA surprises. Bryan knows her job doesn’t begin and end with solving a case. She’s likely to encounter clients experiencing stress, trauma, identity confusion, and intense emotions related to their change of status within their family and she offers comfort, humor, and emotional support. Here she talks with us about her work.

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  • AdoptionEssays, Fiction, Poetry

    Dear Mom and Dad

    by bkjax December 31, 2020
    December 31, 2020

    Two days after I learned I’d been adopted, we met to talk about the secret you’d kept from me. Looking back, I was completely unprepared for that conversation. I was still in shock from learning you weren’t my biological parents and that you lied by omission about this my entire life. What follows is what I wish I’d have known to express then in that first conversation. I didn’t know then that would be our only conversation about this. Had I been able to say these things then, I think it would have made it easier on all of us. I don’t regret being adopted. I’ve had a great life; in reality I’ve been spoiled. You did a good job raising me to be the man I am today. You made me feel loved and supported. You taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance. You showed me the simple pleasure gained from working with my hands. You also guided me toward an honest life where I stand up for what I believe in without worrying much about the personal costs.  When I look at my life now, I don’t see how I would have ended up where I am today if you hadn’t adopted me. I’ve got a great wife, wonderful kids, and a life I love.  But none of this changes my need to know who I am and where I come from. Searching for and reuniting with my biological family hasn’t been something I did as a rejection of you or as a result of some failure in your parenting. No matter how much you ignore my need to know, it will never disappear from inside of me. I simply have to understand who I am, and because of adoption, there’s more to that story than who raised me.  As I trace my roots, I begin to understand why I am the way I am. I still see your hand in molding me, but I also see the biological foundation of my attitudes and behaviors. I also know where some of my struggles came from. You tried to shape me to be more outgoing; maintain outward appearances; and adopt a go-along-to-get along mindset at home, but biologically it wasn’t who I was, so we clashed over these expectations.  Discovering my lineage and meeting my biological relatives makes me feel more like a whole person than I ever have. I’ve seen myself reflected back to me in others—my rebelliousness and personal style; my difficulty in going with the flow; my mischievous sense of humor; and my deep introversion. Since I’ve met my biological father and heard stories about my biological mother, these traits all make sense to me now. Before, it just felt like I was doing something wrong.  While I’m not sorry I was adopted, I deeply regret that you kept my adoption secret from me for 48 years. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I can see the places where I was trying to force myself into a mold that was never meant for me. While for the most part I’ve made peace with the time and energy I invested trying to be someone I’m not, I likely will always have nagging questions about what might have been had I stayed truer to who I biologically was. It’s still hard to look back on the internal struggles I had—feeling like I’d failed in some way for not fitting into the family mold. It makes me sad to think about the fuller relationship I believe we could have had if I’d known the truth.

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abandonment adoptee adoptees adoptee stories adoption advocacy biological family birthmother books DNA DNA surprise DNA surprises DNA test DNA tests donor conceived donor conception essay Essays family secrets genetic genealogy genetic identity genetics grief heredity Late Discovery Adoptee late discovery adoptees Late Discovery Adoption meditation memoir MPE MPEs NPE NPEs podcasts psychology Q&A rejection research reunion search and reunion secrets and lies self care therapy transracial adoption trauma

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The Lost Family: How DNA is Upending Who We Are, by Libby Copeland. Check our News & Reviews section for a review of this excellent book about the impact on the culture of direct-to-consumer DNA testing.

What Happens When Parents Wait to Tell a Child He’s Adopted

“A new study suggests that learning about one’s adoption after a certain age could lead to lower life satisfaction in the future.”

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“She thought that her daughter would want to meet her one day. Twenty-five years later, that’s not true.”

I’m Adopted and Pro-Choice. Stop Using My Story for the Anti-Abortion Agenda. Stephanie Drenka’s essay for the Huffington Post looks at the way adoptees have made unwilling participants in conversations about abortion.

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@2019 - Severance Magazine

Severance Magazine
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Severance Magazine
  • About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
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  • Essays & Fiction
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  • Short Takes
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  • Self Care & Coping
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  • Speak Out
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    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
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