I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
Lyrics by Paula Cole
I was in a bit of a daze, lost deep in my thoughts as I pushed my
shopping cart up and down the aisles of the grocery store.
A familiar song, that was playing over the store’s intercom system, pierced
my melancholy mood with a bolt of searing heat.
Suddenly I was very conscious of my attempting to blink back stinging tears.
“I don’t want to wait…for our lives to be over…”
And just as suddenly, I had to stop myself from shouting it out loud, lest everyone look at
me like some sort of nut was now loose on the cereal aisle.
NO!
No, I don’t want to wait.
I’ve already waited for 60 years.
And in many ways, it is too late.
Most of you probably recall my recent posts regarding my quest to find my birth mother
along with how that abruptly ended via the response of an attorney to a social worker.
“You are in the past, and the past is where you will remain…”
However, biology teaches us that there are two parents involved in the
making of a baby.
A mother ‘and’ a father.
Yes, yes, I know… we are living in odd times when the father may simply
come frozen via a sperm bank…but nonetheless—there is a female and a male involved.
And to me, that female remains the biological mother and that male, the biological father.
The door was obviously gut punched shut regarding my birth mother but the social worker
followed that slamming of a door with a question…
“would you like for us to now search for your father?”
Now let’s back up this story a tad.
You may remember me telling you how, at the first of the year, I opted to
participate in the growing DNA puzzle quest…23 & Me
And thus searching for my past, I sent in a vile of spit.
But if the truth be told, that was in part because my doctor suggested that I do so
in order to learn some of my medical history.
Odd things continue creeping up and my doctor didn’t want my son and grandchildren to
have the same sort of out of the blue surprises.
Once the specific DNA company sends you your breakdown, as part of the information
you receive, DNA matches are automatically shared.
And it just so happened that there was a very strong DNA match with a person
who was marked as a first cousin.
Out of the tens of thousands of “relatives”, I had but one close relative match
and that was of a first cousin.
As more tests continue being processed, more matches come your way.
And nearly 6 months after the fact, I still have but one close match.
There is a messaging option on the DNA site so when I saw the numerical link,
knowing this might be my only opening for some sort of answers,
I immediately knee jerked and excitedly reached out to this man.
His smile in the provided thumbnail picture was warm and genuine.
I explained who I was and provided an abbreviated version of my story of adoption,
an adoption of which eventually lead me to look for answers in a DNA test.
I’m sure it is no doubt a surreal feeling to find sitting in one’s inbox
a new and unknown relative has, out of the blue, reached out.
But I was fortunate—he messaged me back.
We exchanged e-mails and began corresponding.
I shared the redacted information from my original adoption file
regarding my birth father and he shared his family’s history.
I told him my father was…
28 years old
A Lt. in a southern state’s State’s patrol
Romantically involved with a 23 yr old nurse in Georgia…
He later shared this story with his two brothers.
Following a few days, he emailed back that both his dad and his dad’s cousin were
28 in 1959 and were lieutenants in their state’s State Patrol…
but that it was the cousin who had dated a nurse in Georgia.
And given our DNA percentage as only cousins and not high enough to be siblings,
he was pretty certain, the cousin was my father.
Sadly both men are now deceased.
There is, however, a daughter, now grown and two years younger than myself.
This cousin of mine has now encouraged her to do the DNA testing.
So when the social worker had asked about searching for my biological father,
I had shared with her about the DNA testing and the connection with this cousin.
She asked if I had a last name.
I did.
Yet the surreal thing throughout all of this process has been the fact that my complete file,
a file full of all the answers to all my questions,
has been sitting right in front of this social worker all along— a person who knows
the names, the states and the dates to my entire life but due to the laws, she
can not share a word.
It’s as if I’m telling her everything she already knows…things I’ve labored and toiled
over discovering yet information that is readily sitting in a dusty old file on the desk
of the person I find myself spilling my guts to.
Well… she called yesterday.
“Julie, do you have a few minutes?”
She begins by telling me that since her office has determined that my birth father is deceased,
they could release his name…
of which she did…
and he is indeed the state patrol cousin.
This story is obviously fluid and on-going.
I have once again reached out to “my cousin” with
this latest information.
I now wait as both he and his family must process this information…
There is a half-sister who must decide whether or not she is ready for
a half-sister she never knew existed.
How they will respond is yet to be determined.
One half of my life’s puzzle is now known.
Yet, I wonder if this will be welcomed news to this unsuspecting family
or will it be just too much?
I went from feeling a euphoric sense of joy following the news the social worker shared
to that of a guarded sense of trepidation.
And in all of this, the irony came flooding over the intercom system of
a grocery store with its choice of song.
And I couldn’t help but notice…
So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the peace in every eye
She had two babies, one was six months, one was three
In the war of ’44
Every telephone ring, every heartbeat stinging
When she thought it was God calling her
Oh, would her son grow to know his father?
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
He showed up all wet on the rainy front step
Wearing shrapnel in his skin
And the war he saw lives inside him still
It’s so hard to be gentle and warm
The years pass by and now he has granddaughters
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
You look at me from across the room
You’re wearing your anguish again
Believe me I know the feeling
It sucks you into the jaws of anger
So breathe a little more deeply my love
All we have is this very moment
And I don’t want to do what his father
And his father, and his father did
I want to be here now
So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the love in every eye
I don’t want to to wait for our lives to be over
I want to know right now what will it be
I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
Paula Cole
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