In this emotionally charged episode, we join Candace and Wendy on their heartfelt journey to uncover their past and connect with their biological parents. With candor and vulnerability, they share the ups and downs of their adoption search, exploring the intricate threads that bridge two worlds and the profound impact it has had on their lives. Prepare to be moved by their remarkable quest for family and identity.
Mr. Spin has the beginnings of dementia. This explains the merry-go-round of a conversation we had earlier this week. How do I know this? I called one of his
relatives that would be my cousin. (He has no bio children that we know of). I explained my situation and
made a plea for her to help me by taking a DNA test to reveal whether I am part of their family or not.
I hit the jackpot! She is nothing short of amazing!! She was overjoyed to help me. Before I told her anything about me personally, she mentioned something about feeling like, “this is the Lord.” I said, “Oh you’re a Christian? Well, so am I…” and things just took off from there. When I say we hit it off I mean like…we
already have plans to visit each other in person! She explained to me that although Mr. Spin has not been officially diagnosed with dementia, it is understood among the family that he has it. She had total compassion on my situation and welcomed me with open arms as a friend, and hopefully as family. As I sit here and update this blog at 11:00 PM, she is still texting me telling me how excited she is about this. It’s so great to have someone actually EXCITED about DNA testing for me, wanting this to be a match.
So, moments after our initial phone conversation I ordered a DNA
test through Amazon and she will have it Tuesday. I am pinching myself. If this is my paternal family, I already have at least one person who wants a relationship with me and has welcomed me with open arms.We’ve been sitting here on what has seemed like a
dead end for a few years. Although it’s seemed hopeless, Gayle Lechner and Regina Zimberlin have never given up and have worked the DNA, the trees and the circumstantial evidence relentlessly. Even when I felt overwhelmed like I couldn’t go another step they kept working it. And now suddenly, there’s a breakthrough and a possible definitive
answer. In a few weeks, I will know whether Mr. Spin and I are a match.
And now we wait. There is no suspense like waiting for a DNA test result. I hope I never have to know what it’s like again after this.
I’ve got to get this
off my chest, so here goes.
Usually I do not use
this blog to vent, but to share my journey, educate, and open people’s minds to
another way of understanding life adopted. But today, I’m ready to rant.
So this week I met a
man. His name is Kenny. He’s the nicest man in the world. I’ll take it further –
he’s not just nice, he’s amazing. When I take my next trip to Virginia, I’ll be
stopping off to have coffee with Kenny, for sure.
It’s amazing how in just a week’s time
you can connect on a deep level with someone. I’m part of a Facebook group that is made up of people from my natural mother’s hometown. I joined in hopes that someone there would know something and help me. These people have been so kind and generous to me, trying to do anything it takes to help me with my search. It was recommended by some of them that I talk to Kenny. His family lived only a few doors down from my natural mom’s family and they are very well known in town. Not only that but his 94 year old mom is still alive and has a mind as sharp as a tack.
Kenny doesn’t
have a Facebook page, and he doesn’t even text! He’s one of those rare people
in the world unconnected to social media of any kind. But, when I called he
already knew who I was, because so many people on the Facebook page had told him my
story.
Kenny immediately
welcomed me into his life and his heart and wanted to help me. He wants so
badly for me to find my natural father. He wants to do anything it takes to
make that happen. So far on his own suggestion he has not called but driven to
and stopped by several people’s homes to talk to them about the situation…people
he feels certain know something. On Thursday night he actually went to the nursing home to talk to his mom about my situation. He implored her, “Mom, keep thinking about this. If you remember anything, no matter how small…please let me know so we can help Deanna.”
“You deserve a Christmas miracle,” he says. “You deserve to
find your Daddy…” he says. “I know if this was my Daddy, I’d want to find him.
Who can’t understand that?” he says.
By now you are wondering what in the heck I am here to vent
about. Here goes…
On my journey I have met several people
who have been willing to help me at this level and in some cases beyond. Many
people I have cold-called have actually taken DNA tests for me. They have immediately opened their hearts and their homes to me. Numerous people
took my cold call, talked to me for weeks or months, and after meeting me said,
“Oh my God! I hope you’re my sister!” or “I’m hanging on waiting for the DNA results hoping you’re my cousin!” or “We’re already planning a family reunion to
introduce you!” I’ve been through this again and again…with people who just
days or weeks ago were STRANGERS and are now among my cadre of friends!
What I’m venting about is that the people who DON’T have the information are most often
the most amazing, loving, nicest people in the world. And the people that DO
have the information? I can’t even say here what they are without losing my
ministerial credentials!!! I can’t even describe them without God Almighty
telling me to watch my language!!!
The people who DO have the information can be the nastiest people
on the planet.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
One of the people in my natural (maternal) family who I am sure knows more than they are telling is always posting stuff on social media about kindness. Stuff like this:
I wish they would stop posting stuff they really don’t believe or practice. They aren’t kind. If they withhold information about who and where people come from they are NOT KIND. They are not nice.
Truthfully it’s starting to concern me a little bit that if my
natural father’s family already knows about me, they may be included among the mean people who hoard information and don’t want to know their own flesh and blood.
Why are some people WITH information so mean? Why do they feel it is their right to withhold information from people who by all human rights should know where they come from?
If you are reading this and you are holding information from anyone whose pain could be taken away by you sharing it, can I implore you to please give up your mean card and tell them what they need to know? What they deserve to know?
Kenny brought me to tears on Thursday. I was leaving work when
he called. He had a phone number of somebody he felt it would be helpful for me
to call. I let him know I was driving home from work and asked if he could text
me the number. “Remember, I don’t text,” he said. Can you get a pen and pull
over?” I promptly pulled over into a church parking lot nearby…the “Church at
the Mall” in Lakeland, Florida. Sitting there I took down the name and number
of the person he wanted me to call that night. A few minutes later after I wrote down the information and was still talking to him, I pulled
back out of the parking lot onto Memorial Boulevard and he said, “Deanna, when
all this is over, will you call me sometimes, just to let me know you’re okay?”
[Insert tears here.]
Gus and I already knew 100% that we are father and daughter.
We matched on 23 and Me with his nephew, and then we had a paternity test done
through a home kit. Plus, he remembers the relationship with my mother, and all
of that. Not to mention, I look just like him! But…
I want to have it done completely LEGAL, and something that
would literally stand up in a court of law. (Not that we will ever need that,
but I just wanted to have it.) After all the many years of searching for him,
and the blood, sweat and tears, I’ve gone through…it’s way too much work and
means way too much not to make it 1000% official and have a third party, legal
DNA test done. There are legal DNA
companies that are mobile and will come to any location and I hired one to come
out and test us. Here’s a picture of the lab technician doing Gus’s part of the test.
Now it’s legal schmegal, forever and ever and ever and ever
AMEN!!
Woot woot!!!
