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....