Alyice on August 3rd, 2009

Thanks For Giving Me A Sister

I can still remember the day my mom finally admitted that the person on my birth certificate wasn’t my biological father. I’d known for years, but couldn’t bring myself to ask her. There was just no way he could be my biological father—he looked nothing like me and wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. And yet, hearing the truth wasn’t as comforting as I’d hoped.

My mom was separated from her husband and talking divorce when she began dating my dad. They were thinking of making a life together—my dad and my mom—but my mom was still madly, deeply in love with her husband. She didn’t think it would be fair to my father to stay with him when she didn’t love him the way he deserved to be loved and so, when her husband asked for a second chance, she said good-bye to my dad and worked to save her marriage.

When she found out she was pregnant, her husband agreed to be named the biological father and even tried for three years to make the marriage work, but they were both opinionated, strong-willed people who just couldn’t be in the same room together.

I still remember the day she kicked him out. I was only two years old at the time, but I remember it as if it were a scene in a movie. She was yelling at him as she threw his packed bags down the stairs, then out the door and onto the street where a taxi cab was waiting. It turns out that he had an affair and wanted a divorce so he could marry his mistress.

Years later, when I was about nine years old, my mom began dating what seemed like a really nice man. He was nothing like the other men my mom dated and something about him made me feel safe. But just as soon as I got attached to him he was gone. No good-bye, no more contact—just gone. Then when I hit my teen years, he showed up again. And the same thing happened. One minute he was there, and the next, gone.

Turns out that he never fully stopped loving my mom and would stay in contact with her over the years, hoping that the right opportunity would present itself and he’d have another chance at winning her heart. But no sooner did it get hot and heavy did my mom send him packing.

She didn’t like the fact that he was a push-over; that she could essentially bully him into doing whatever she wanted. She wanted a man who could stand up to her, a man who was strong enough to take on a strong woman. And she wanted a man who wasn’t self-centered, anal-retentive, and a bigger clean freak then she was.

But as a child, I didn’t see his faults. All I saw was a cool man who seemed to really like me, and loved my mom enough to keep coming back every time she pushed him away. As a child, I secretly wanted him to be my biological father and why not—I looked like him. It was uncanny how much I looked like him.

So when he came back into my life as a young adult, I jumped at the opportunity to get to know him, to claim him as my father—even though both he and my mom still couldn’t bring themselves to admit the truth.

When my mom finally admitted the truth, he felt free to share the truth, too. He said that everyone knew I was his child from the moment she found out she was pregnant and that he wanted to be a part of my life, but my mother couldn’t handle the idea of having a child out of wedlock, let alone with someone other than her husband. So when she asked that it be kept quiet, he agreed. He said that he loved her so much that he just wanted to make her happy and to respect her wishes. He said that he didn’t just come back into our lives for my mom, but for me, too—to see how I was doing.

When I accepted him into my life, as my biological father, I opted to ignore the fact that he never claimed me as his own, that he could’ve made my childhood a lot easier by being there—both physically and financially, that he still had a hard time calling me his daughter, and that he had other children whom he hadn’t seen either.

It should’ve come as no surprise that he’d disappear from my life yet again but I was naïve enough to believe that he loved me enough to want me—to need me as much as I needed him.

But he did leave me with something precious this last time. Turns out I have four sisters and one brother thanks to my biological father. One sister I cannot locate, two sisters I was in contact with until ten years ago when my biological father disappeared from my life and took my sisters with him, one brother who can’t handle the fact that I am his biological dad’s daughter, and a sister who is so much like me it’s scary! And it’s that sister that I am so grateful for.

I can still remember the day I received her letter. I had contacted her to let her know I existed and to ask if she’d be willing to keep in touch. She hated our biological father so much for abandoning her and for being a class-A jerk. And she was so angry about discovering she had other siblings out there that she knew nothing about. She wasn’t sure if she could handle the news, let alone deal with a new sibling in her life. Everything in her wanted to say, “Thanks but no thanks.” But something inside her said, “Give it a try. Take baby steps and see where it leads.”

And that’s just what we’ve done. Baby step after baby step until finally, this year, we’ve reached a place in our relationship where baby steps are no longer necessary—where we can be ourselves with each other, where we can lean on each other for comfort, and share in each other’s joy. Where can call ourselves sisters without always thinking in the back of our minds, “But we weren’t always sisters, we were strangers first—and for so many years, we didn’t even know the other existed.”

Today, I cannot imagine not having her in my life and so, while my biological father may have turned out to be a class-A jerk, I have to give him thanks for leaving me with such a very precious gift.

Give thanks…

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AlyiceEdrich.com
I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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