So Many Questions....

In the last post I told how I had messaged Elliott to let him know that his nephew Keith had discovered my existence on 23andme.  If you missed it, you can go read that post here.

I had hoped that Elliott would respond to my message before things escalated, but by the time I had finished writing him, I already had a response back from Keith.

"Wow. Okay....you have my attention now," was all that he said.  But I knew that meant he was going to be going into action. I lay in bed for a long time that evening, unable to sleep. My stomach was tight and I wondered how long it would be before things really got moving.

It didn't take long. After a very short night's sleep, I awoke to another message from Keith.   He told me that he didn't really know anything about the majority of his family and that nothing that I told him would surprise him.  He said he knew none of his grandparents and had no relationship with any of his aunts and uncles. He assured me that nothing would change for him or his siblings if I chose to divulge information to him.  He offered to talk with me over the phone if I wanted and then finished off by saying he had asked his wife to send me request on Facebook since he didn't have an account.

I responded to him by saying, "Believe me, there is nothing I would like more than to be able to share my story. But I made a promise that I would not until I was told it was okay by those involved.  I have messaged them to let them know you are asking questions.  I cannot help it if you figure it out (and I kind of hope that you do because then it will no longer be a secret), but at this moment there is nothing more that I can do. As soon as I can, I will share. I promise. "

When I logged into my facebook account, true to his word, a friend request from his wife, Katie, was waiting for me.

I chose not to answer her friend request right away.  Instead, I tried to put everything in the back of my mind, while I hurried to get myself and the kids ready for the activity that was planned for the morning/afternoon.  Steve was going to spend the day hanging out with his friends and the kids and I were going to stay busy by taking a four hour train ride on the Great Smoky Mountain Railway.  We hopped in the car for the 20 minute drive from Cherokee to Bryson City. Once we arrived, we parked the car and found a little cafe where we went for a quick breakfast before the train was to depart.  Then the messages started coming.

Around 9:30, Keith's wife, Katie, began sending me messages through facebook messenger.  I couldn't look. I just had to focus on finishing breakfast with the kids and making sure we made it onto the train by departure time.

We boarded the train.  We were going on a trip that included lunch, so our seats were at a table next to the window.  The kids settled in the seats closest to the window and as the train left the station, they were completely distracted by the scene outside.

I then took a deep breath and opened the message.  Katie told me that Keith had asked her to friend request me.  "Clearly you share a grandfather...," she said.  She explained how Keith didn't know much about his family for various reasons.  His paternal grandfather was an orphan.  I could be related to Keith through him, she guessed.  But then she said another theory of theirs was that I was related to Keith on his mom's side and that one of his aunts could be my biological mother.  "My husband thinks your birthmother is Ella or Janice. Is that correct?" They were Elliott's youngest sisters.  She told me if I was related to him on his mother's side, that I would have 4 more cousins besides Keith.  She had sent me pictures of each of them,, telling me who they were.   One of them, Brady, who is Keith's brother, she said I clearly took after and she was right. The resemblance was crazy! All of them shared the same mother.  Susan Martin. Elliott's oldest sister.

I read all of her messages, but I did not respond right away.  Instead, I tried again to send a message to Elliott.  Here is what it said:

"This morning I have received a message here on facebook from Keith's wife. They are desperately trying to find out our relation. I have not done anything yet, but I do not know how long it will be before they put things together.  She saw my picture and said that I strongly resemble his mom's side of the family."

I was thankful that my kids were completely engrossed in the scenery outside of the train window. and by the fact that as part of the lunch package included in our tickets they received cool souvenir mugs and could have as many refills on drinks as they wanted during the whole trip.   My mind, however, was in a completely different place.  I was texting crazily with Steve keeping him updated as to what was going on. He was being as supportive and encouraging as he could even though he wasn't right there with me.

I finally responded to Katie.  By this time it was 10:45.  I told her, "I messaged your husband earlier on 23andme and told him I am still waiting to hear back from the other people involved. I promised not to say anything so I am waiting to give them the opportunity to tell their story.  Once that happens, I will accept your friend request."

The messages kept coming on facebook and 23andme. I tried my best to respond without giving away any information.  My stomach was so sick.  While the lunch they served us on the train was delicious, it sat in my stomach like a huge lump.  And then, around 12:45, I got a message from Keith that sent my head into a tailspin.....

"Well, the inquiries to the family have been made....."

Out of the Shadows

Wow! I can't believe that it has been over a year since I last wrote a blog.  Life changed and got busy, so I had to take a break.  Here recently though, some people have been inquiring whether or not I ever plan to finish writing my story.  While I feel there will never truly be an "ending" since our lives are stories that continuously unfold,  I want to try to put into words my experience so it can be shared later on with my children and grandchildren, and hopefully encourage some of you along the way.

If you are new to the blog, you might just be wondering what exactly I am writing about.  It is the journey of my life as an adoptee, from birth to now....it is a journey of God's faithfulness and goodness as truth was brought to light.  May I suggest that you go here to start from the beginning?  It won't take that long to catch up. I promise. :)

If you have been following along,  you may remember that I had come to the conclusion through DNA testing and doing research on Ancestry.com that a man named Elliott Martin was a possible candidate for my birth father. I wrote him a letter and turns out my research had actually been accurate.  Because his wife was not exactly thrilled with my appearance and did not want the rest of the family knowing about me, I told him I would not reveal myself to any of them without his permission.  The only possibility of anyone finding out about me was if the first cousin DNA match on 23andme who had been anonymous for the two years I had been on that site would somehow log on and find my profile.  

Fast forward six months to August 13, 2016.....and that is exactly what happened.  Steve, the kids and I had gone away for the weekend, when I got a message from that cousin, Keith Denton.  He told me his mother was Susan Martin, who was Elliott's sister.  I had been found.  You can read all about the events leading up to that here. 

It was dark in the hotel room and the kids were sleeping. I was frantically relaying to Steve what had just happened. I decided to respond to Keith, but did not divulge Elliott's secret since I had made a promise that I wouldn't.  Instead, I wrote this:

"Hey Keith!! Actually, I do know how we are related and we are first cousins. At the moment, I am not at liberty to explain how, but as soon I can, I promise I will let you know."

I was a bit excited. Who wouldn't be? Here was an opportunity to open the door to family that I wondered if I would ever get to know. I had made the promise to Elliott and intended to keep it. He was hoping his wife, Hazel, would come around and he would be able to tell his family himself. She had not moved in her stance at this point and I wondered if something might happen to him before I had a chance to meet any of the rest of the family. What then? I had a half-sister and half-brother that I knew about and frankly, I was curious. I wanted to get to know them and wondered what they might think about me. At the same time though, I knew that the poop was about to hit the fan. Since Elliott had told me of his recent conversation with Hazel about me, I knew there was no way this discovery by Keith was going to be a happy one for her. And I really wasn't sure how Elliott himself was going to feel about being exposed.

Hoping to give him a heads up about the situation and a chance to prepare for what was inevitably to come, I immediately messaged Elliott. It was 10:50 p.m.

"Hey Elliott! I just wanted to let you know that your nephew Keith Denton has just contacted me on 23andme which is the other DNA site that I had done testing through besides ancestry.com. He has showed up as my first cousin since the day I was on there. Only today he has messaged me to ask me how we are related. I told him that currently I am not at liberty to say how we are connected. I wanted to let you know, because I am sure he will begin pursuing finding out how."

I sent the message desperately praying he would see it before things escalated.

But they already had.

By the time I finished writing Elliott, Keith had already responded on 23andme.

The Story of My Life: Found

In the last post, I shared with you about some of the conversations that I had with Elliott in the first couple of months after my initial contact with him. Those conversations ranged from talk of Carol in the days that he knew her to me informing him of the first cousin that I shared DNA with on 23andme and everything in between. I ended my last post telling you about how Elliott had been having some health issues and how I began to wonder what I would do if something ever happened to him before I had a chance to get to know the rest of the family.  You can read all about that here.

Everything turned out fine and the medical issues were resolved without any serious results.  As it turned into summer, communication with Elliott was more sparse. Our few conversations took place mostly through Facebook messenger.

August rolled around and it came time for Elliott's birthday. I sent him a message with birthday wishes.  He responded the next evening saying he had spent the day resting.  For his birthday, he and Hazel had travelled to visit my half-sister Ava and spend the day celebrating the birthday of Melody, Ava's daughter, who shares a birthday with Elliott.  He also told me that he had tried to strike up a conversation with Hazel about the situation on the ride home.  Hazel still seemed threatened by it all and refused to discuss it with him.  He apologized to me and then said that he hoped in time that things would be different.  He asked me not to hold it against him or Hazel.  My appearance had been a shock to both Elliott and his wife and he knew that it would change who he was with everyone he knew once they found out.  His concern wasn't at much for himself as the rest of his family.  At the same time that he wanted to protect them, he also didn't like keeping things from his children. He said he knew that it was a bit convoluted, but he hoped that I would understand.

I responded to him and said this: "It doesn't sound convoluted. I totally understand. I have learned in my life that there is freedom in truth and often extra blessings that come with that truth, but it has to be in your time. No pressure from me. Glad to hear you had a good trip! Hope today is wonderful as well."

My conversation with Elliott had taken place on a Monday. The following Saturday, our family was going to be leaving to go away for a couple of days to Cherokee, NC. Steve was going to meet up with some of his guy friends there on Sunday and hang out for the day.

I never really like it when Steve is gone, whether he is out just for the evening or if he leaves on some kind of trip. Often, when he is gone, I find my anxiety levels rising or have difficulty going to sleep. I sometimes get the same tight chested feeling that I have if I am dropped off at the door of a restaurant or church where things are unfamiliar or I am surrounded by people I don't know. I had discussed this with my counselor and she told me it was an abandonment issue that comes from being adopted.

Since I wasn't really feeling like dealing with all of those emotions with Steve going away, I had convinced him that this time it might be fun if he took all of us along with him on the trip. We could do some family things on the way up on Saturday, and on Sunday while he was with his friends, I could find some fun things to do with the kids. He agreed and I was glad.

We left Saturday, stopping at the Wild North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville first. We had fun seeing the animals, walking the trails, and playing a bit of Pokemon Go. After that, we continued on to Cherokee where we took the kids to see the outdoor drama, "Unto These Hills."

Later that evening, as we were settling into the hotel, the kids were in bed and Steve and I were laying in ours messing around on Facebook. Just before going to sleep, I decided to check my email. There was an email from 23andme. It said that Keith Denton had sent me a message. In the message, he told me that he lived in Ohio and that his father was Ken Denton and his mother was Susan Martin.  

Susan Martin was Elliott's sister. My cousin had found me.

The Story of My Life: Conversations

In the last blog, I told you how Elliot had told me to check my email on Thursday morning at 9:30. I checked and he had sent me an email telling me to give him a call.  I did. And he ended up telling me my story.  You can read all about that here.

I talked with Elliott on that Thursday morning and on other Thursday mornings for several weeks following.  I would listen to him tell stories of his growing up years, learning things about him and his parents who were also my biological grandparents. 

He told me stories about my half-siblings, Ava and Joseph.  He just knew my sister would be thrilled to know of my existence.  Yet, because of Hazel's opposition to my sudden appearance, I made a promise to him that I would keep everything quiet unless a time came that his wife would be comfortable with the situation. I assured him that I would not try to approach his family and tell them of my existence unless he said it was okay. It wasn't an ideal situation, but I was just thankful for the opportunity to get to know him  and learn things that gave me a better understanding of myself.

I did alert Elliott to the fact that there was a first cousin on 23andme whose DNA matched mine.  I knew that this cousin was related to me through Elliott's side of the family.   That cousin was anonymous and had never made any contact with me.  But if he ever did, there would be no possible way to keep things a secret.  My name and picture were already public on that site. Elliott said he understood and if that happened, we would just take it as it came.

Elliott was a much more mild-mannered person than Carol and it was easy to carry on a conversation with him.  He accepted responsibility for his past mistakes and said, "It is what it is, and we can only move forward from here."  He slowly seemed to accept the idea that I truly was his offspring.  We would talk of Carol and the whole adoption situation.  I told him how I had found her and shared stories of my interactions with her.  Whenever I found myself getting angry and frustrated with her, Elliott would calm me down and tell me that I shouldn't be angry with her. He believed she really did not know who my father was and he believed that to be the reason why she wouldn't tell me anything.  At times, I couldn't believe what I was hearing coming from his mouth. Here is the one person who truly had the right to be angry with her, and he was speaking gently and kindly, offering her grace.  

Elliott had known Carol for about a year.  This time spanned from his initial meeting with her, through their "relationship" and the months following until she went away to have me in Indiana. He even had contact with her a few times in the first couple of months after I was born.  He told me how he had felt sorry for her because she always seemed "lost."  He told me about how she talked with him about giving me away for adoption and how she cried when speaking of me. This was so different than the "I never thought of you again" conversation that Carol had with me on the phone.  I began to see another side of her that she had not made known to me, and although I was still angry and upset towards her because of some of her actions during my contact with her,  I began to soften a little bit and view her from another perspective. I began to understand why it was that Carol did not want me or the others to know the truth of her circumstances. It was exactly as she had feared, that she would end up looking like a horrible person. Instead of facing the truth head on and running to healing through forgiveness and grace, she hid behind her fear of condemnation and shut the truth up inside of her. 

My parents asked me what it was like to talk with Elliott on the phone.  I could only describe it as being similar to talking with an old friend. Even though I really didn't know Elliott, there was a strange familiarity that I found comforting.  We were strangers, but we were related, and I felt a connection that is hard for me to put into words.

As summer approached,  our phone conversations pretty much ended as Hazel was no longer going to Bible study. We kept in contact occasionally through Facebook messenger.  

In May, Elliott told me that he was having some medical tests run.  The situation turned out to be more serious than he had initially thought. But because it was caught and corrected, it did not turn into a life threatening situation.  

But this got me thinking though.....what if he did endure some type of medical crisis or even worse, what if he passed away?  What would I do then? Would I make myself known to my half siblings or any other members of his family? And if not, would be I be able to live without ever having the opportunity to meet or get to know them?

The Story of My Life: My Story

In the last post,  I shared with you the struggle that was warring within me after I found out that Elliott's wife did not want him to be talking to me.  When I ended, I told you that Elliott told me not to contact him until I had heard from him again. You can read all about that here.

Thursday morning arrived.  I took Zoe over to my parents earlier than normal so I could be home at 9:30 to check my email.  Elliott was good on his promise. There was an email in my inbox waiting for me. I was not exactly sure what to expect.  All kind of thoughts had been running through my head during the week. I had prepared myself to accept the fact that he was going to tell me not to contact him anymore.  Instead, when I opened the email, he told me he had lost my number and asked me to call him.

So I did.

I dialed the number he gave me and as the phone rang, there was a queasy feeling in my stomach.  A man answered, and I could quickly tell from the tone of his voice that he was a bit nervous. I asked him about how he was feeling, and he said it was all a bit strange. I agreed with him and we shared a bit of a timid laugh.

He told me that his wife did not want him talking to me, but he did not think that was fair. He had told her this and never promised her that he would not talk to me.  He felt it only right that I know my story, so to not be in her face about it, he waited to talk to me until she was gone to her Bible study that she went to weekly.  

He again told me that he was not certain that he was my father. I assured him I understood that, and that I was willing to do whatever he needed to help him be certain, but there was no rush.  

He then began to tell me a bit about himself. How he grew up and about his college days.  He told me about his time in the service.

And then he told me about how he met my birth mother.

It wasn't the romance novel relationship that I had often wondered about. It also wasn't the affair of my birth mom with a married boss that had also crossed my mind. And it definitely was not a rape. 

Rather, it was a story of indiscretion as my birth mom had been brought into his home as a friend of the girl his roommate was seeing.  Carol had made herself readily available to Elliott that day and he willingly had taken her up on the opportunity.  This incident turned into a "convenient understanding," you might say, as Carol and her friend quickly convinced the boys that it would be so much easier if they all just cohabitated.  This continued for a few weeks, until one night Carol went to a work party and didn't come home afterwards. She had not stayed in her apartment in town, which was her original plan, as she phoned the next morning asking her friend to bring her the key to the apartment that she had left at the house. When Elliott realized what was going on, he immediately kicked her out. He had hoped that they would become serious about their relationship, but when this happened, he realized that was not the case with her.

Not long afterwards, Carol came to Elliott saying that she was pregnant and that he was the one responsible for this.  He felt set up and trapped. She had told him she was on birth control.  It just didn't feel right to him and since he knew she had been "friendly" with more than one person, he just couldn't believe the child was his, even though he knew it was a possibility.   

He consulted with a lawyer who advised him to give her some of the money she was asking for to take care of the adoption and have her sign an agreement that said he would not be held responsible for the child.  

And for forty plus years he had believed that child didn't belong to him.... until he received my letter.  

As we both were there on the phone, talking and trying to work through our own emotions of this moment, he said to me, "I may not understand why all this happened, but this one thing I know, God created you to be a gift to your parents." 

And with that, tears filled my eyes.  Because with that one statement, I knew that he understood, I was not an accident, I was planned. 

There was a hole in my heart that was healed that day. A hole that for so long I never realized existed. But God knew, and He being the healer that He is, brought it to be. All praise be to Him.

The Story of My Life: The Struggle

In the last post that I wrote, I told you about how I waited to hear back from Elliott and had not heard anything. I then wrote to him asking him if he was okay.  He responded to me, and I had a few thoughts regarding that email.   You can read all of those thoughts here.

Since I now knew that his wife did not want him talking with me, I began to realize just what this could mean in my efforts to know my own truth. It may just mean that I had come this far only to know who my birth father was but not how I came to be.  

And I have to be honest, I was struggling with that realization. This is where the emotions of the heart began to collide with the logic in my head and began to spiral rapidly out of control. I would like to be able to say that I was waiting patiently on the Lord during this time, but indeed I was not. While I trusted God knowing He always has my good in mind, I also knew that sometimes that good means that I am not going to get what I want or what I am hoping for. 

My heart wanted more than anything to know.  I had come so far and learned so much. Once the door had been opened and I had been given a taste of my truth, I desired more and found the quenching of that desire bit by bit to be a sweetness that led to me to search even harder for the next means of satisfaction.

My head told me I was blessed. That in just knowing who my birth father was I had been given a gift that was more than I had ever hoped would happen. And my head was right. 

But then my heart would hurt because I couldn't understand why I would not be allowed to talk with the man who contributed half of the DNA required for me to even exist.

My head would respond and say that my heart was right, because to keep someone from talking to a genetic relation when the person making that decision was not related at all seemed wrong.

But then my head would always end up saying, she is his wife and has been for forty years.  She hold the highest role in his life and I knew that this fact trumped all. 

But what could I do about it? Nothing, but wait and pray and continue to try to calm the battle that was waging within me.

I went to the doctor that week and my blood pressure was 150 over 95. I had to begin monitoring it on a regular basis and watching my diet.

My sleep became very irregular as I would lay in bed with thoughts continuing to haunt me even in my dreams.

My relationship with my husband and family was affected as I was so overwhelmed with emotions and feelings that any little thing would seem to set me off.

I was so distracted by it all, that as I left to go pick up our exchange student up from youth group,  I backed my car out of the garage in so much of a hurry that I did not notice Steve had parked his truck in a different place.  As I turned and the front right side of my bumper thumped and screeched against the side of the truck, I screamed. I had backed out and turned so hard, that the force caused the car to get stuck. I went into the house yelling and screaming to get Steve to come help me, which he calmly did.  As he watched me leave in his truck to pick up Valeria, he said he was concerned that I was somehow going to have a mental breakdown as a result of it all. And honestly, I began to wonder that myself.

I began to realize that my struggle was with God. I believed that he had led me this far in my search, sending information or people to help me along the way at what seemed to be exactly the right times.  So it was difficult for me to think that he would just leave me hanging and shut the door so close to the finish line.

I was reminded of Romans 8:28, a favorite verse of mine. It says, "All things work together for good to them that love God...." This was the moment where my faith was really going to be put to test.  Not a faith that was saying God said all would END good, but that he said all would BE good.  I had to believe this.  If I never spoke to Elliott again and never learned the truth, it was for my good. As difficult as this realization was, I did the best I could to keep reminding myself of it.  I would like to say that all of my worry and frustration disappeared, but it didn't.  But God was using this time to continue to grow me and refine me in many ways.

I waited four days to respond to the email he had sent me. I thought that by not being in a hurry, it might give Hazel a chance to work through things.  When I wrote to Elliott, I didn't say much but assured him that my parents, and especially my Dad, knew all about my search.

He responded later that day and said that Hazel still did not think he should communicate with me.  He told me not to contact him anymore until I had heard from him. 

Then he told me to check my email on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.....

The Story of My Life: The Waiting Game Begins

I left off the last post, having written a letter to Elliot.  I had awoken the day after our brief email exchange with a new piece of understanding about myself, one where for the first time in my life I knew who I had come from.  As I thought to myself all of the things that might be going through Elliott's mind, I wrote him a letter to try to ease any concerns he had.  You can read that letter here.

Then I had no choice but to sit back and to wait. And wait I did. It seemed like forever.  Sunday drug on into Monday, Monday into Tuesday and so forth.  I would check my email and then check it again two minutes later to see if something would show up in my inbox.  I was so disappointed every time when there was nothing from him. I found myself engulfed with thoughts of Elliott no matter what I did to try to distract myself.  I could not go anywhere or do anything without thinking about him or talking about the situation with Steve or any close friend that would lend an ear.  Finally, on Thursday morning, I sent him a message on Facebook. "Are you doing okay?" is all that it said.  Later that day I received a reply from him. 

It generally went something like this.  He told me he was okay, sort of.  He had told his wife, Hazel,  about my contact with him and let her read our emails.  Even though she had known about the possibility that a child of his existed out there somewhere, she was obviously upset by the fact that I had shown up.  She had cried and asked him not to speak with me anymore. Elliott told me that she knew he did not feel the same way about the situation.  Their week had been busy and he had not had an opportunity to have more discussions with her about the situation.  He did not feel like it was fair to me to be left in the dark, so he wanted to let me know what exactly was going on.    And then, he told me if I had not already told my dad about searching for and finding him, that I shouldn't. He did not want me to hurt my dad in that way. He said, "You know he truly is your father." He then told me to prepare myself for the fact that he might not be my father, as he was preparing himself for the opposite. 

It wasn't a long email, but it held a lot for me.  First of all, I could tell by the way that he ended it, that this was a huge deal for him.  After forty plus years of thinking that he was not responsible for the child that Carol carried, Elliott was face to face with the possibility that indeed he might be my father. This had to be a shock to him.  I could tell it was going to take some time for him to be able to settle in on that fact.  I had been searching and therefore I was eager and in a hurry to find out more answers and know the truth of my story,  but I would have to be willing to be patient and give things time. That was going to be very difficult for me to do.

Secondly, I very much appreciated the concerns Elliott had for my dad.  I personally wasn't concerned because just like the situation with Carol, I had kept my parents in the loop of everything that was going on. My dad knew of my search and my contact with Elliott.  I knew that both of my parents knew I was not looking to replace either of them with someone else, but the fact that Elliott had thought of my dad and in fact wanted to protect him in the process was a relief. After the incidents with Carol when she referred to herself as my "momma," I was comforted to know that if this were to turn into any type of relationship down the road, that Elliott seemed to already have a respect for the relationship I had with my dad and did not want to do anything to cause it harm.

Last of all, I wasn't sure what to do with the fact that Hazel did not want Elliott talking to me.  I mean, I could understand it.  It was a surprise to her (and to him) that I had showed up out of nowhere. I was sure she must be in shock. I cannot imagine the thoughts she might have about what other people might think if they found out that her husband had a child out of wedlock. I could understand how this could be a huge concern for her. How do you go about explaining that to people? She didn't know me or anything about me, so there were lots of possibilities that could have been going through her head. I began to research adoption reunions involving daughters and birth fathers where the wife of the father was not happy with the situation. There are so many stories of adoptees who show up out of nowhere who try to take advantage of their birth parent.  Some try to get some kind of financial gain from their birth parent making them feel guilty or that they birth parent "owes them." Then there are the cases where the adoptee and the birth parent or sibling find themselves caught up in a case of genetic sexual attraction. In these instances, the adoptee and the blood relative end up involved in some type of romantic relationship with each other. Because there is a bit of familiarity and connection with someone who shares your DNA, yet there is still the excitement of getting to know the unknown about that person, in the process sometimes they find themselves falling in love. I knew that was a ridiculous reason from my viewpoint, but it does happen, so it could be a valid concern. Then there is the viewpoint that no matter if it was an ideal situation or not, Hazel would find herself on the outside.  I had learned by this point that Elliott had two children, a son, Joseph and a daughter, Ava.  With Elliott being my biological father, that would make me half siblings with Joseph and Ava and no relation at all to Hazel.  She would in essence be the "step-mother."  This could also be a very difficult situation to be in. 

With all of the different viewpoints that I studied and researched, I could totally understand Hazel's point of view, but on the other hand, I couldn't understand it at all. But then again, I have never found myself in this type of situation. Steve has not had someone just show up out of nowhere claiming to be his child.  But I would hope that if that happened, that I would be gracious and accept that person.  But since I am not there,  who is to say what would happen.  

 I just prayed that in time, she would get past her initial feelings and accept the situation and accept me. And I tried desperately myself to accept the situation I was in. But as the minutes turned into hours and the hours into days, I found myself slowly unwinding....