Give Thanks...Finding My Birth Father

For me, the past few months  have been a whirlwind, life-changing adventure. Not only did I find and speak with my birth mother in November, this year I found my dad, and even though I cannot speak with him, I've learned about the man...

Through the memories of others.

Thanks to Ancestry.Com, I connected with a second cousin on my father's side. She reached out years ago looking for lost relatives. Apparently, someone in her family was a truck driver and since joining Ancestry, they've found several "relatives" from all across the country. She wondered if I was a product of the man's, shall we say, generosity. When I reached out this time years later, I had a name, my birth father's name, and once I gave my cousin the name, the floodgates flew wide open.

She gave me her number and I called. We spoke and a world that had always been a mystery opened up to me. She told me of my father and a little about the man he was. One thing she wanted me to have was a memory book handed out at my father's funeral. A few weeks after our conversation, the book arrived. With it, a binder full of family history with pictures and stories of my father and his father and the family's adventures in Texas. Plus, story after story of my father, his career, family, and passing.

It was such a wonderful treasure to receive.

Being adopted, I find myself comparing my birth father to the father who raised me. I found the similarities striking. Both fathers served in the military. Both served in law enforcement, in fact, unlike my adoptive father, my birth father continued in law enforcement as a career. 

I found the non-similarities fascinating, too.

My birth father was an athlete. He played little league football, high school and college baseball, he golfed, coached teams, and was involved in sports all his life. My adoptive father's youth was quite different. Instead of playing sports, he was hunting food to feed his family. To be fair, I know less about my birth father's history, than the other, so I'm sure my birth father had trying times growing up during the WWII and post-war America. I've never seen a photo of my adoptive father playing sports. He was too busy with other priorities, unfortunately.

My birth father had great hair, even until the end, and made it almost to his 80s. He was loved by family and friends alike. And even though I won't meet him in this life, I'm thankful I have stories and photos of him. I'm also so very thankful that a cousin would compile a family history for me--someone she's never met--and send it to me so I will always have a knowledge of the man and a little bit about his life.

It's been an amazing couple of months.