children

We were sitting in the car on the way home from school and I shared with my son how I re-discovered a childhood Bible of mine that my dad had given me, and I couldn’t wait to show him because my dad had really cool handwriting.

He replied, “I think I got my handwriting from my dad.” Then we had this pause moment that comes with the reality of an NPE* discovery. My dad, his grandpa, didn’t pass his cool handwriting down to him—or the color of his hair, his eyes, none of it. We found this out a little over a year ago—and it’s been a struggle for me to return to center.

But then the empathy and grace came in: “He wasn’t your genetic daddy but he taught you lots of stuff and that counts too, mama.”

Empathy for other people’s experiences is something I hope he’s gaining from this experience he’s walking with me.

Since late March 2021, no, mama hasn’t been okay—not 100%. But I’m working on it each and every day, and he sees that. People have reacted differently to this experience—and we talk about how there’s no good or bad guy—just people doing the best we can to deal with something traumatic and new.

He sees me have good days and bad days. Of course, I shield him from most of my bad days, but he knows words like “mental health” and “therapy” and “gratitude journal” and he sees me struggle but he also sees me succeed. And I get the blessing of seeing him grow and learn and absorb, and I am amazed at his self-confidence and sense of self.

Truly this discovery left me shattered. The best way I can describe it is visually: in my head I picture myself standing in the middle of a house that a tornado or fire went through. Everything as I knew it burnt down and I’m left grasping for straws on how to re-build.

Luckily, I have an amazing team in my corner, and I know some of them wish I could let it go. Count my blessings and move on. Stop caring what certain people think. Stop holding onto hope for certain things. And all I can ever do is thank them (so, so) much for their support through this and share that it’s one of those lived experiences that you can’t fully understand unless you’ve been there. (And I wish that none of them ever have to be here.)

That said, I hope that through this experience my son and I, at 12 and 36, both learn empathy, because the world could use more of that these days.

I pray we both lean more into our faith because that’s a beautiful foundation to have.

I hope my son remembers that his mom struggled but she got up. (I’m getting up way slower than expected, but still getting up.) I hope that I learn to have patience and grace for myself—and others—and he in turn sees that too.

I hope we continue to go to bed each night grateful for those in our corner. And I hope both of us continue to realize that we’re worth taking up space in this big world. (In truth, he already knows that, but I need reminding now and then.)

I want him to know that we do our best to leave things better than we found them, and that includes people and situations, too. I tell myself that I have nothing to be ashamed of—and neither does he. I just discovered something that was already true; my origin story, as untraditional as it was, has no bearing on who I am as a person. (I will type that out a million times until I truly believe it.)

I hope we both walk through this experience and come out better for it on the other side—even on the tough days when that seems impossible. I have a good track record of overcoming some hard things; and I’m so grateful to have my son to hold me accountable for giving others—and myself—the grace we all need.

*NPE: not parent expected, non-paternity event

Michelle Talsma Everson is an independent journalist, editor and storyteller from Phoenix, Arizona. She discovered she was an NPE in March 2021 and, since then, has been navigating how to best blend her writing and NPE discovery to provide a voice and resources for those impacted by surprise DNA discoveries. You can read about her personal NPE journey on Scary Mommy and the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. She has also written about the topic for Next Avenue. To learn more about her career outside of her NPE discovery, connect with her on LinkedIn, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter.