It's been a few days since, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around what has taken place. Daily, I have a flux of emotions that consists of everything from happiness to sadness, and everything in between. I feel like this post will be raw. Raw with realness. Raw with emotions. As I sit in this moment I really am trying to make sense of this new "thing". This new thing is so big I just don't know what to do with it. Yet it's something that has been a question in my mind for my entire life. For my entire life I had a suspicion. Yet because life had thrown so many worse things, it was never something I thought I'd ever find or get an answer to. I was wrong.
It was a normal day this October when my sister called me to tell me she was contacted and had his number and he wanted to hear from me. It was that same day after hours and hours, I got the courage to call. To call...the brother I knew existed, but wasn't sure really was my brother. Yeah my life story is like that. Mom was 21, dad---at least the one I was told was my real dad--was 51.Yes, that's right. 51. I made that call and from there it began. Before that day, I'd always look in the mirror and not understand why I got the dark chocolate gene when all my other siblings got the milk chocolate gene, among so many other questions about why I look the way I look. You know those things you look at in yourself and can identify which parent it came from--yeah, I was missing that. I knew I had my mom's eyes, but that was it. Until now.
Going back to October-- my brother and I talked for hours. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to go. Me at 35 him at 37, what do you say. Was hi, good enough?! For everyone who knows me I will usually keep things real. It was no different with him. We both acknowledged we weren't sure how this was supposed to work. So for weeks we talked. We laughed. We Facetime'd. We shared pictures and stories. Finally, there were some things that were starting to make sense about who I am. I could finally understand why I got the chocolate gene. I was able to actually SEE it. See my dad. My real dad. In pictures, considering he is gone from this earth. The dad I was never told about. The dad I knew about only "through the grapevine". The one for whatever reason only wanted a son, and not a daughter. My brother had gone through 37 years of life with this little secret that he had a possible sister, yet really only knowing for a fact that he was an only child. I'll never know what transpired in my brother's mind or life up until that time, that had him ask for my number. Whatever it was, it began this new journey. I'm thankful for it. For such a long time I've wanted answers and now I have them.
My brother and I talked for a month before we decided we needed to make sure we were indeed siblings. So we did. We got a DNA test. If you read or know anything about half sibling DNA tests, you'll know without a living parent being tested the test will almost always come back inconclusive. Both our mothers--mine which happens to be black, and his mom which happens to be white--- are deceased. Our only option if we wanted answers was to pay a really high price to 'gamble'. The odds were against us. But God is always for me. Knowing all this, we still needed to do it. For both of us. For our kids. For our families. That day walking into the DNA place was okay. Yet every day afterwards was a nervous wreck. Until. I was sitting in a class lab where I mentor freshmen, when I got that email. The results. Everything that was happening in class in that moment stopped. I couldn't breathe. I wasn't expecting an email! I was expecting something in the mail. I didn't know what to do. Prior to getting the results I told my boyfriend I would give the results to him and let him tell me what they said. Yet, I acted on impulse when the email came through. I read it. It read...(paraphrasing) " the dna test confirms there is a 98% chance you are half siblings". My eyes teared up.I walked out of class and called my boyfriend, then my brother. It was true. This was really true. I really had a man who was my father. I had a brother. To some of you this may seem weird, but when you've had the life I've lived, this was....momentous. I had answers. I now know who my mother was and who my father was. That alone was enough for me. I had never met the man who was my father. I was never raised by the woman who was my mother. Yet now I knew who they both are. I now have a pedigree. I have a lineage. I know where my paternal genes come from.
What happens after the DNA test confirms we're siblings?? I do what I do...and book a trip to make all this reality. I wanted and needed more than the talks on the phone. More than Facetime. I needed real flesh. I needed to see and hug the man who was my brother. The one who is the closes thing to my father I will ever come near. I needed to see him. That all happened. It happened Thanksgiving of 2013....
to be continued.....
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