Not once did my father stop looking for me. You see, I was
one of those children who was passed from parents to foster parents. When I was
ten months old, my mother couldn’t handle the responsibility of being both a
drug addict and a mother. She had to make a choice and motherhood was the
expendable one. Don’t feel sad for me, it was done with the lot of us; all
eight of us – four boys and four girls. I was the youngest; therefore, I was
the last of the Mohicans to get the proverbial boot from the nest. I spent
years fantasizing about what it would be like to belong and what my father was
thinking about me missing from the brood. Isn’t it interesting that I never
thought about my mother? I thought it was. I wondered and wondered about my
father. I judged my mother, but never thought that he could have been to blame
for my removal from the family. Well, guess what? I was right! Imagine
that…after years and years of my made up notions, to come to find out that it
was true. You see, I was sitting in the living of my very best friend’s home
(that had become my home) and the phone rang. She was, Cherrie that is, sitting
doing her daughter’s hair – twists and curls – it was beautiful. She stopped to
answer the phone and handed it to me. It was my ‘godmother’ calling to give me
some news. I had been googled, or searched out by someone making grandiose claims
of me being her baby sister. The room grew quiet … a little too quiet, if you
ask me. There I was, in the middle of what should have been one of the best
moments of my life and there was no pomp and circumstance – not even from me. I
think about that moment and wonder about my emotional freedom. It’s laughable,
now. I wrote down the number that was being recited to me, then pressed and
released the what-ya-ma-call-it (I never did know it was called). Oh yeah, the
receiver button! I dialed the number and waited. Ring…ring…ring, “Hello.” I sit
and listen to a stranger recant details of my life; details that I had heard
from those I had come to mistrust. It was true! My sister, Pat, told me that
she had been given the task, by our father, to do whatever it took to find me.
He had been having her search for years. And, as you would guess, I met this
man. The man I had fantasized about in my youth. He reached out and took my
hands into his and said, “Yep, those are the thumbs.” ‘Those are the thumbs?’
Is that all he had to say? So, I said, “What is that supposed to mean?” After
all the years of his looking and looking, he still had some reservations and
the thumbs sealed the deal for him. I was the daughter that he had never
stopped looking for.
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