Isn’t It Ironic?
I submitted a story to Adoption.com a couple years back, while I was still searching for my biological father. I was trying to find ‘Bruce’ with some sketchy information about an ambulance company in 1967. Well, I found him, sort of. I have to pat myself on the back just a little, because the research I did made me feel like a full-fledged sleuth. After running down way too many dead-ends I finally made contact with an individual who worked at the ambulance company at the same time Bruce did. I don’t want to disclose his identity, so I will call him Steve. As it turned out, Steve had stayed local after all these years. He was a pilot and just happened to live 5 miles from my current home. Talk about a small world. Steve was able to provide Bruce’s last name! Some anecdotal info confirmed this was the Bruce I sought. Turns out Bruce has been married several times with multiple offspring. I had always hoped for half brothers and sisters. With a little more digging, I had an address for Bruce just 20 minutes from where I lived. I was hitting paydirt! Or maybe not. I couldn’t get a phone number, so I dropped by and knocked on the door. I met a 91-year-old who admitted to being Bruce’s mother, but said she didn’t know where he was. He was into horse racing and could be anywhere in the southeast US. A little more digging and I found an ex-wife. She said I should steer clear. Bruce didn’t care for any of his legal children, let alone an illegitimate one. This was all bad enough to hear, seeing as I just want to know genealogical and medical information. But then my adopted mother gave me an old photo of myself, an extra high school yearbook photo taken from the opposite profile from the one used in the yearbook. When I overlaid it on the wedding photo of my biological mother and her husband (not Bruce) it matched at the eyes, nose, mouth, hairline, jawline and ears. What hits me the hardest is how just before my biological mother died she told me Bruce wasn’t the father, but she didn’t remember the name of who it was. She didn’t remember the name of the father of the one and only child she ever had. I think now the father was the man she married. It is bizarre to try and think of the reasons people lie about matters of no consequence.
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My biological mother’s husband denies any chance he is the father and he condemns me for trying to find out who it is. Ironic if he is the father and doesn’t know.
I do have a great relationship with my biological grandmother, mother’s side, and that is more than I should have ever expected. My grandmother lost both her children, one to an auto accident and the other to cancer. Ironic then, that I should stumble into her life and share the birth of my son – her only great grandchild.
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© Matt Geuther 2003
oliviscus@hotmail.com