One Day, At A Garage

Growing up, I never really paid attention to the little things. When your life is a series of huge events, the small stuff fades into the background and just stays there. Bigger fish to fry. Bigger fires to extinguish.

My mother died when I was 3 weeks old from a post-partum intestinal blockage. She was 25. That was the first big thing.

She left behind 2 other children besides me, both older.

Oh and she was still legally married, but living with her boyfriend. Second big thing.

Oh, and her boyfriend was Black and this was 1971 and nobody would allow him near me, the baby because, you know, scandal. Third big thing.

So I was adopted. Big thing number four. But at least it was by my aunt and uncle, my biological father's oldest brother, and his wife.

That was a total of 4 big things before I even I could even sit up by myself.

Growing up white presenting but biracial in a Black home was a big deal. Growing up biracial on a predominantly white Army base on the east coast was a big deal.

But for all those big deals, it was a routine nothing-burger that changed my life forever and made me question every single thing I knew about myself and my life.

My adopted father, who I'll refer to as Daddy because that's who he was and always will be, took me to visit my maternal grandmother every summer. It wasn't a huge trip, about an hour away by car. We also visited other relatives on those trips because my Dad grew up there.

He felt it was important that I got to know the only biological link to my birth mother that he knew. It was both a prudent and selfless move on his part.

The year I was 9 or 10, I can't honestly say which, the car started acting funny. I remember the vehicle, it was a 1977 AMC Hornet Station Wagon. We pulled out of the nursing home Grammie lived in and it sputtered and stalled a few times.

We pulled into a garage. I remember being annoyed, but Daddy promised me we'd get McDonald's after the car was fixed, so I accepted my fate, and the long wait.

There was only one other man in the place. He was a white guy with a pleasant face and a very friendly manner.

I can't remember who approached who, but it became obvious within minutes that although Daddy and this man didn't know each other, they know of each other. They had heard each other's names and had some sense of their respective families.

The white man said I was a beautiful little girl and then said I resembled his daughter. He took out his wallet and showed us a picture of a very pretty girl who was maybe 3 or 4 years older than me.

That was it. At least for me. My father told me to go across to the store and get us some drinks. He was tense. The air changed around me but I didn't know why. I didn't care. He handed me a $10 bill and told me to get him a Coke and whatever else I wanted. Sounded like a good deal to me!

When I came back, the nice man was gone. I didn't think much of it again. That is until I was in bed that night and could hear my parents talking. Not talking, arguing. My mother was accusing my father of misunderstanding something the white man said. My father was adamant that wasn't the case.

He insisted I be told something, the truth, he said. She insisted further investigation was warranted.

I woke up to her on the phone. To this day, I have no idea with whom.

Later, they sat me down.

It was time for the truth.

I already knew I was adopted.

I already knew about my birth parents.

I already knew I had a brother and a sister, 6 years and 18 months older than me, respectively.

What I didn't know was the man in the garage. Or his daughter. My father didn't either.

That man was my birth mother's estranged husband and widower if we're to be specific. He'd been visiting his family across the border and suffered a mechanical issue with his car at the same time we did.

His daughter, the one I looked like, was his daughter. His daughter he shared with my biological mother. My half-sister.

My half-sister that nobody mentioned. The obituary mentioned 3 not 4. Her own mother said nothing. Ever. Family members that knew said nothing. My birth father said nothing about a child his love had with her husband.

I sat. I listened. I didn't really understand. I got the words. I got that I had another sister. I didn't get the lies. And that's what changed my life forever.

Before then, I took everything I was told about my existence at face value. I believed what I was told. I was told my mother died from a botched hysterectomy. I had no way of knowing that wasn't true. I accepted how I was so loved and wanted. I bought it all.

But from the day I found out, I started digging. I started questioning everything. In my mind, if you can hide a whole kid, you can hide just about anything.

As I researched and asked questions, I found out a few things. First, people lie. They lie for a whole host of reasons. Some of them aren't sinister or meant to mislead. Sometimes they lie to protect you.

Sometimes they lie because they don't have answers but feel like they should, so they fill in the blanks with what they have on hand.

I found I (and my adopted parents) were lied to about everything. I have to make that clear. My parents always told me the truth as they knew and understood it. They just didn't know.

I was told all manner of stories about my mother's death. I was told she had cancer and bravely chose to carry me, that she just sorta died, that she died in childbirth, and like my parents were told she passed away as a result of a hysterectomy gone wrong.

None of those things were true.

I've been lied to about where we kids lived and with whom and who my birth father may or may not be.

But I kept digging because of that day in 1979 or 1980. I kept digging and questioning because I knew about the big lie, the big secret.

It made me feel like crap for a long time. Knowing I was a subject of lies and cover-ups made me doubt myself. I mean, what was so bad about me that I couldn't get a straight answer about my very existence?

It sounds silly, maybe, but think about it for a second. Most kids know where they come from. They know who their parents are. They know their siblings. They can look to someone and gain an understanding of why they're like they are. They can look at Dad's green eyes or Mom's musical talent. They can see Auntie Rose's brilliance or Grampy Burt's temper. They can look at someone and feel like whoever they are, it makes sense because there's that link.

I didn't have that. I had well-meaning parents and a lot of lies at every turn.

Not having that grounding was damaging for me. I looked like nobody around me. I acted like nobody around me. I liked things nobody around me liked. Not having that link to another person that made me make sense left me feeling lost and alone in a world of strangers where I just never quite fit.

It took over 50 years to sift through it all. And I still don't have all the answers. I've had to reconcile myself to the fact that I never will. Pretty much everyone who would have had first-hand knowledge of the events surrounding my birth and my mother and siblings is dead.

But I have found my half-sister. Through the magic of social media, I've located and reached out to her. She's understandably cautious and has already told me she doesn't have a lot of answers to my questions. She was a toddler at the time. Nothing may come of it. We may never be close.

That's fine. I'm not expecting anything.

I got what I was after. I know I'm not crazy. I found her. She confirmed who she was. I've been able to shove a big middle finger up to all the decades of secrets and lies.

And to think, it all happened because a couple of guys happened to get their cars fixed.