You won’t be able to access this story by LINK>Mindy Stern if you are not some level of “member” at Medium. I no longer have a paid membership but they allow me a few stories per month and I am careful not to use them all. You can still read what Mindy writes about adoption at her website linked above. I will simply excerpt some of the LINK>Medium – story “I Found My Father On The Internet” here.
It begins with her revealing – Two days earlier, I found my biological father and two half-sisters on the internet: pictures, addresses, phone numbers, Facebook profiles. My cell phone vibrated. Holy shit. It was the number I called two days earlier.
“Oh my god, its him,” I said to my daughter relaxing on my bed. “Pick it up!” I picked up my phone and my daughter picked up hers and opened her camera to video, aimed it at me and hit record. I found some words to say out loud.
“Hi yes, thanks so much for calling me back. So, you knew my mother, Gloria Gerwin?”
“Yes, of course I remember Gloria,” said this stranger on the other end. I covered my mouth and fell to my knees.
It’s him. I know it’s him.
Two weeks later in Madrid, she notes – let me tell you, until you have spent 26 fucking years searching for your father and he says, “I would have raised you if I knew,” you do not know your capacity to be moved.
She writes about viewing – The Garden Of Earthly Delights (in Madrid, which) tells the story of human’s struggle with morality. It admonishes the sin of lust and celebrates the joy of pleasure. It is fear and abandon; seeking and finding; risk and failure; creation and destruction. It is humanity in all its flawed magnificence and it is the story of life. In its complex beauty, I saw myself and my long, painful search for healing.
And back to how she found her father – I hadn’t checked my Ancestry account in months. My DNA had been there for a decade, and for a decade I got nothing more than distant cousins. No one who could help me find my father so I stopped checking it. But for some reason, that Sunday morning, I decided to check my account.
I had a 1st-to-2nd cousin match. Henry Minis. He had been there for six months. With trembling hands, I Googled his name, then searched his Facebook friends for someone who looked like me. I didn’t find that face or blue eyes or brown hair like mine, but I discovered everyone with the last name Minis lived in Savannah so I Googled “Minis family Savannah” and then, well.
The Minis family were the first settlers of Savannah, Jews like me, and the world wide web had a lot of information about them. Two hours after I began sleuthing, I found him. My first father. My God, I have younger sisters who look just like me.
I spent the day anxiously scouring the web, texting friends, asking what to do. Call? Write a letter? Reach out to my sisters first? My birthmother died before I found her, I didn’t have to contend with these questions or anxieties, didn’t have to strategize my introduction like it was the war plan of a conquering army. But now there were real live humans who might tell me to fuck off or might tell me hello, welcome to the family. So now, every choice felt like life or death, war or peace.
Late that afternoon — evening on his east coast — I impulsively called him. I left a duplicitous message on his voice mail. “Hi, this is Mindy Stern, my mother was Gloria Gerwin, she passed away, I found your name in her papers. I’m writing a book about her and wondering if you remember her, you might share your memories.”
The following day, I reached out to my sisters, messaged them on Facebook. I told them I believed their father was mine too, that I didn’t think he knew. My mother died not telling anyone about me, I wanted nothing more than health information and to know where and who I came from. I made all my social media public so they could see I was not a serial killer. I was a respectable human being any right-minded person would want to know.
Adoptees have to explain, qualify, reassure and beg for mercy from strangers we hope will understand our need and want and treat us with dignity.
That night, my sisters responded. They said they were shocked but thrilled, and open to a relationship. We corresponded for hours, exchanging family photos and life stories. Their kindness filled my soul like a prayer sung loud in a crowded church. We all agreed that Hal would never respond to the bananas message I left him.
And then he did. He denied having sex with my mother. Then, I said – DNA.
He remembered their nights together and said yes, I must be your father. He asked what I wanted. I assured him nothing more than information. He was so kind. I then told him I made contact with his daughters. He then said mean and angry words. He told me because I did that, I may never hear from him again.
My daughter stopped recording when she saw my face shift to despair. I hung up and sobbed. I then composed myself, got my shit together. I reminded myself I am an imperfect human and maybe I made a mistake. Or maybe I didn’t. But I was okay either way. I had a loving family and fulfilling life and fuck, I hated having to do this. This reaching out. This risking and falling.
Two hours later, as I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and blue skies shone through my windshield, my phone vibrated again and with it my body. I answered his call on the first ring and he said he was sorry. He told me he was just shocked. “If I knew, I would have raised you.” Three hours later we hung up.
My story is one of hope and perseverance. My story is also one of great grief, profound emptiness, and the struggle to reconcile with what could have been. Who would I be if I grew up knowing who I looked like or why I love writing or have fat toes and a genetic predisposition to psoriasis and anxiety? Who would I be if my life was defined by answers rather than questions? I don’t know — can’t know — all I know is this:
We are here, in this Garden of Earthly Delights, to find a way to embrace the contradiction, to embrace our contrasting parts, to accept our beauty and ugliness and the beauty and ugliness of humankind.
We are not here to compartmentalize, although we do that so well. We are here to overcome. To thrive, grow and flourish. To love and to mourn. To stick it out as best we can, having some fun and debauchery along the way.
blogger’s note – I share her story because I’ve had similar experiences hunting down my own genetic relations. It can be fearful and exciting – all at the same time.
Missing Mom 