June 18, 2021

Who's your daddy?

Reading through a pile of Facebook posts past year or so, I see that many who received a DNA surprise express a lot of anger toward their mothers for "lying to me all these years". I've never experienced any anger toward my mom for not telling me the truth. Of course, she's deceased so I can't ask questions on the "why" but she loved me unconditionally and so did the man who raised me. I was lucky to have such giving and loving parents, no matter whose DNA created me.

I have to wonder if the anger gets in the way of truly processing the facts and accepting the reality. After all, our parents - if they did indeed intentionally lie to us - likely did it out of fear and love. Fear they would lose someone's love (a spouse or a child) and the love they felt toward the 'lil DNA surprise.
It just proves to me that our parents are in fact *human*. They made mistakes. They had sex. Sometimes with people they shouldn't have. They didn't tell the entire truth. They were infallible. Just like every other human on the earth. Just like us.
Now, that doesn't mean I just throw my hands up and completely accept the situation. Oh, no. I'm curious. I have questions that will never have answers and sometimes that makes me angry. I have moments of shame, even. Just shades of it, after all I'm not the one who made the mistake although I've made plenty of my own, just of a different flavor.
I'm sometimes sad that I don't really carry the blood of the wonderful man who raised me, cause who wouldn't be proud to be his child? He served his country for many years, he always put his family first. He loved his God. He was the finest man I've ever known. He loved to hold my hand. He was proud of me. I do sometimes wish he was "mine", but the fact that he didn't create me during a few moments of intimacy really doesn't mean a thing. Not a thing.

I know who my daddy is and it's not the man my mom had a momentary fling with. It's the fellow who thought I hung the moon. The feeling was mutual.