...is that it is tempting to stop along the way. I just put the money orders and the requests back in the mail yesterday. So we are now officially, four weeks or less from our next step.
I would think about sending the request from time to time but I wouldn't get up and do it. Yesterday, time and opportunity showed up at the same moment and I did it.
I don't think I'm procrastinating. I'm just not feeling any urgency. I'm almost 40 and have lived that long without knowing. I think if it was a long lost relative or friend that I had a previous relationship with, I'd try harder.
Showing posts with label the emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the emotions. Show all posts
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
The process
I've started a journal to record all of the "clues" or information that I have. I have enough information to request birth certificates. The only question is if both of them were born in the same location. One, my father is certain of so I'll send a request to that city for both.
I want to see if my father is listed as father on their birth certificates. Mainly, I want to know if they knew about him. You watch these "shock" talk shows and see people who live their entire life thinking one man was their father and it was someone else. I just want to know how much they know.
The good thing is that as a sibling, I can request the materials. I do not want to involve my father yet. In the past few months, I am realizing how "fragile" he is. I think as daughters we see our dads as these infallible towers of strength and when you see them at all vulnerable the woman in you wants to protect them from any harm. So I am willing to take these first slow steps alone and share my anxieties and impatience here :o)
So, I have the applications and will fill them out today. Make a photo copy of my ID and tomorrow I will get money orders and mail them off and wait up to four weeks.
I'll be working in the meantime to gather more information. Time is never on our side in these matters. My father and his siblings searched for his brother who they had not seen in 30 years. Last year my dad found him, sort of. He died just the year before. If they had pushed a little harder they may have found him and got to see him one last time.
So for that reason, I will remain steadfast.
I want to see if my father is listed as father on their birth certificates. Mainly, I want to know if they knew about him. You watch these "shock" talk shows and see people who live their entire life thinking one man was their father and it was someone else. I just want to know how much they know.
The good thing is that as a sibling, I can request the materials. I do not want to involve my father yet. In the past few months, I am realizing how "fragile" he is. I think as daughters we see our dads as these infallible towers of strength and when you see them at all vulnerable the woman in you wants to protect them from any harm. So I am willing to take these first slow steps alone and share my anxieties and impatience here :o)
So, I have the applications and will fill them out today. Make a photo copy of my ID and tomorrow I will get money orders and mail them off and wait up to four weeks.
I'll be working in the meantime to gather more information. Time is never on our side in these matters. My father and his siblings searched for his brother who they had not seen in 30 years. Last year my dad found him, sort of. He died just the year before. If they had pushed a little harder they may have found him and got to see him one last time.
So for that reason, I will remain steadfast.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The response
I called my father after I spent a few minutes alone with the picture. I wanted to really look at these two children. My husband said that the girl looked like me and the boy was built like the men in my father's family.
My father was overly "jokey" about the subject. But having been his daughter for nearly 40 years, I know him. He was trying not to be hopeful. He said he knew what I was trying to do and he wasn't in it. I could hear between his words that at 70 years old he was not up for the search and possible rejection and disappointment. He is not 100% positive that the children are his. He "thinks" the boy is but has reason to doubt the girl and because they are so close in age, he has reason to doubt either. (More on the series of events that led to the distance between them in posts to come)
My sister's response was basically, we lived all these years without them maybe it was God's will that it be like this.
So I scanned the photo. Enhanced the images and sent them via email to my father and sister.
When I called my sister the next day, she had been online searching for them at whitepages.com and other general sites.
She now felt like I did. Our potential siblings now have a face and seeing their eyes, has made them real.
Armed with the information on the back of the photos and my father's sketchy memories from 50 years ago, I am ordering copies of their birth certificates next week.
An unexpected ally has emerged to assist in this search. My mother.
My parents are divorced and she said she has always felt a bit guilty about not looking for them sooner. When she and my father married she didn't want anyone to know he had been married before so the kids were part of the omission. She said there was a point that she informed my dad that she was going to tell us. She thought that it was best that we knew. So she'd be excited for us to find them and find out once and for all if they are our brother and sister.
My father was overly "jokey" about the subject. But having been his daughter for nearly 40 years, I know him. He was trying not to be hopeful. He said he knew what I was trying to do and he wasn't in it. I could hear between his words that at 70 years old he was not up for the search and possible rejection and disappointment. He is not 100% positive that the children are his. He "thinks" the boy is but has reason to doubt the girl and because they are so close in age, he has reason to doubt either. (More on the series of events that led to the distance between them in posts to come)
My sister's response was basically, we lived all these years without them maybe it was God's will that it be like this.
So I scanned the photo. Enhanced the images and sent them via email to my father and sister.
When I called my sister the next day, she had been online searching for them at whitepages.com and other general sites.
She now felt like I did. Our potential siblings now have a face and seeing their eyes, has made them real.
Armed with the information on the back of the photos and my father's sketchy memories from 50 years ago, I am ordering copies of their birth certificates next week.
An unexpected ally has emerged to assist in this search. My mother.
My parents are divorced and she said she has always felt a bit guilty about not looking for them sooner. When she and my father married she didn't want anyone to know he had been married before so the kids were part of the omission. She said there was a point that she informed my dad that she was going to tell us. She thought that it was best that we knew. So she'd be excited for us to find them and find out once and for all if they are our brother and sister.
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