My Father’s Eyes

After getting home from visiting my Pop Pop with my Mom, I felt like I had such a heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders.  She had shared with me her truth (after, yes, some nudging) and ultimately still accepted me and my question.  She was even interested in learning more about my background with me, which made what I was feeling and experiencing feel a little bit more like a shared journey.  I had been so scared that she would back away from the question and/or make me feel guilty for asking.  I didn’t want my quest for the truth to ruin our relationship.  We had been making a lot of progress on building that back up over the years.  My teenage years in particular had been rough on our relationship.

As relieved as I felt on one shoulder, I still had an even bigger weight on the other.  The prospect of my father’s reaction.  I truly wouldn’t be able to handle it if my question were to destroy him.

A laundry list of anxiety-ridden questions filled my mind:

• Would I hurt him by telling him what I know?  What about if he knew I wanted to learn more?
• Would he disown me for my “disloyalty”?
• Would he wonder if I would feel any differently towards him after knowing this, fearful that he had just lost his daughter?

It pained me greatly to think of any of these options coming to fruition.  My Dad and I have always been very close–I’ve been a Daddy’s girl from the beginning.  I wanted him to know that I still am.

More than anything else, I couldn’t stand the idea that my Father could one day go to his grave wondering if we would ever have disavowed him of his fatherhood if we knew the truth.  If he would someday be stripped of that title.  I could not let that happen.  I could not let him wonder, not once, not ever.  I needed him to know that I loved and will always love him deeply, and that my DNA’s truths will never change the fact that he is my Father and the luckiest thing I have ever had in my life.

That same day, I told him I wanted to talk to him later, just him and me.  He asked me what was wrong–I said nothing, but that we could talk later.  He was getting more and more anxious, worried that there was something big going on.  The can was opened, and he wasn’t buying “later” as a conversation starter.

We sat down on the couch in the living room.

I started off by telling him that, before I said anything else, “You have to know that you are probably the closest person to me in the world, and one of the people I love most in this life, and there is nothing that could ever, ever change that…” I trailed off and started to cry. “This is really hard for me to say, because I’m so scared that you’re going to be upset with me.  I need you to know that this doesn’t change anything”.

My Dad huged me, and reassured me that he knows, and that everything is okay.  At this point he was pretty confused, but mostly concerned about whatever’s going on.

I explained to him how we both know how interested I’ve always been in our family’s history, becoming my generation’s historian (with my brother) at a young age.  “Yes”, he nodded and agreed.  I then went on to remind him of how I’d been working on our family tree through Ancestry.com’s website, and uncovering all sorts of cool documents and pieces of information about relatives in the past, and how fascinating it was.

Then I explained upgrading to the DNA test…and the breakdown of my results.  I didn’t have to get much farther than that and my confusion.  He stopped me there.

Dad: “Zeezado, I think I know where this is going.  Is there something you’d like to ask?”

I told him that I pretty much already knew, and that I (briefly) talked to Mom about it, and that it’s okay.  It changes some things about parts of my roots, but that it doesn’t change who he is and always will be to me, and it won’t.

With anguish on his face, told me that he was always so worried that we would be mad at him if we ever found out, for keeping this secret from us.  I told him I wasn’t mad, and he was so relieved.

He then told me that he had actually never known for sure if we were genetically his.  Apparently, after the procedure, the doctor had told him “go home, make love to your wife”, and essentially carry right along thinking the child is yours.  It COULD be, after all.  You’d never know.

Except now, I had ruined this ideology for my father.  Until that moment in time, he had still held on hope to the possibility that we were biologically his after all.  I felt awful, and immediately broke down further expressing as much.

My Dad assured me that while he did hold in the back of his mind that it was a possibility, he still knew the truth.  Like us, he had easily observed that, physically at least, we didn’t take after him…with our lighter hair and blue eyes (he has almost black hair and dark, hazel eyes).  He had known.  Even then, at a time that was probably even more emotional for him, he was consoling me.

THAT is the mark of a true father.

He went on to explain as my Mom came into the room with us that he and my Mom were advised by their doctor not to ever tell us, that it would do more harm than good.  He felt badly about this, but thought that the doctors knew what they were talking about, and that this was the right thing to do.  My brother,  James, then joined the room as well.  All four of us finally began to have an open conversation about it all.

It felt like freedom, and like love, sprinkled with remaining questions.

My Dad then wondered aloud what we should do about Adam, my other brother, who lived nearby but wasn’t there at the time.  Should we tell him?  Who, and when?

We figured that, at this point, it wouldn’t make sense or be fair to my brother if two out of three of us knew, but he did not.  We already felt badly that he would be the last to know.  My parents ultimately decided that they wanted to be the ones to tell him, and that they’d figure out a time to do it soon.

One sibling left to go.  Hopefully we could all be at peace with this news and move on.