Those That Choose You - Chapter 19

My dad, Norma, half-sisters, niece and nephews seemingly opened their heart and homes to me. One day, my dad took me to the graves where my grandparents and great grandparents are buried. These were my people. Technically, they were part of my heritage. All those years wondering what nationality I was, I would never have guessed Scandinavian. And a wee bit Irish. 

Nevertheless I still tentatively and awkwardly called my dad, “D…aa…a…d”. I was afraid I didn’t have everyone’s full permission to call him that. Not that I needed their permission because that’s who he was.  My dad. But in my mind I wasn't sure I have been given the green light to proceed down that road at top speed with total abandon. I was also unsure if it felt right to call him dad. Maybe because I was unsure if that was the role he truly wanted.  

My newly discovered family and I started to make some new memories together. I have a picture on the hutch above my desk at work. Everyone who comes into my office comments on it. It’s of me, with my youngest nephew Wyatt on my lap. My smile is big, and his even bigger. It’s a picture my dad snapped of me while Wyatt and I took a selfie. The event that had preceded that picture? It was our second Christmas together and Wyatt had excitedly helped my sister Lisa open up her gift from Pa. In the box was a necklace. Upon opening it, Wyatt scooped it up then ran straight for me, putting it around my neck. He was immensely pleased with his gift to me, and thus the picture, capturing that amazing moment of sheer joy.

I said it and I meant it. I did not come looking for a family but the initial entry into this one has been really good. I was not prepared to find a father, but we all seemed to share the same goal - focus on what’s ahead instead of what’s behind. We started with a clean slate. But as I joined in the birthday and Christmas celebrations, visited their favourite places and learned more and more about them, a big yawning gap emerged. It’s that gap that comes from not knowing people your entire life. The day to day, year-in year-out kind of knowing. The shared experiences which form the effortlessness in your communication. The ease in which you enter into a conversation because there is so much that doesn’t need to be said or explained because that other person already knows it. They know the context, the history, the details behind the story because they were there and lived it with you. All of that is missing. I can absolutely endeavour to play catch up on some things, as can they. I can learn the little prayers they typically sing at the dinner table. I can memorize who’s who in the family tree. But you don’t realize how much is missing until you spend time together.  

The fact is, there’s a soft cadence when you are with people who have known you your whole life - when you are with family. And when you all join together, the music is sweet and fluid and comforting. My dad, Norma and half-sisters enjoy that cadence together. 

I was recently at the marriage of Lawrence to his second wife. Margaret had passed away 5 years prior and Lawrence had found a “special lady friend” (you know… at the prime dating age of 85!). He was waiting for me at the front of the church when I walked into the sanctuary prior to the wedding. The front row was for Dar and Heather and, to my surprise, me. He waved me to my place in the pew and it was only once I was seated that he made his way to where he would enter with his soon-to-be-new-bride and their attendants. I felt privileged and honoured to be seated in the front row. It was certainly not an expectation. It was later at the reception where Dar and I, coming from different directions towards our table, fell into our seats at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, and simultaneously let out a breathless “Oh dear!” We broke into laughter and I rejoiced. The rhythm. The cadence. You don’t even know it’s there - it just is. My memories. My life. Who I am. Intertwined with them all. A co-worker asked me how it was I rated to be invited to Lawrence’s wedding. 

“I’m family” was my simple answer.  

Heather’s home is where I have found, and continue to find, rest and peace for my soul. A place where I can exhale and the tension in my shoulders ease just a little because I know I don’t have to “be on”. It’s where we drink our coffee or our wine, then walk and reminisce about the life lessons we each learned from Margaret. Where we discuss Heather’s new garden then laugh about Margaret’s gardening attire, me laughing a little more sheepishly because my gardening attire is just as hideous. It’s not just about ease and familiarity. Strangely enough it’s about identity. Which is what started this whole adventure. I have embarked on this journey only to realize that the people I identify with the most are Lawrence, Margaret, Dar and Heather. They get me. I get them. And what we don’t get we accept. These are people who remind me of who I am. These are people who helped shape me. Who I am is, in a significant way, due to them. I am resilient. Strong. Independent. Capable. It was at Margaret’s memorial service that I wept - not just because she was gone - but because I was hearing who I was - and at a time in my life I desperately needed to hear it. It surprised me. Blindsided me. That so much of me was the result of that woman in my life. She once told me, that we had to fight for our dignity. She said some people are bound and determined to take it from us and sometimes we are hard pressed to get it back. So, when life has thrown me to the mat, I’ve always gotten up, no matter how hard it was, or how much I wanted to stay down and admit defeat. I hear Margaret’s voice at those times and have dug deep, made my way upright, bruised and bloodied sometimes, and kept walking forward. Head held high, with dignity. And Lawrence? He was my hero. Without him, I would not have my faith. A faith that has been the deep pool of my resiliency. Tall and strong, even with a bum knee and slightly unsteady, his hug envelopes me, his grip strong and secure, never tentative or wavering. His laughter loud and hearty, his sense of humour slightly twisted - just like mine.  They are a borrowed family.  But they are one of the best parts of my story.

Meeting my dad started with an intense identity crisis. Who was I and why was I? Who did I belong to? And what did those people I belong to tell me about myself. Where was God in all of this? Did He like me? Love me? Want me? Did anyone? It's been quite the journey finding the answers to those questions. I am intensely aware that I am very different from others. That my life has been different hence, so has my perspective. I once had someone ask me, “What did you feel like knowing that both your parents went on to have families of their own and neither of them wanted to include you?” That’s a question, and an answer, that most people don’t have to grapple with. I dare say I’ve lived most of my life knowing I was unwanted. Untethered. Un-chosen. It was a life that was forced to look to others for guidance and acceptance. When you think about that, it could have gone so very wrong. 

I was horrified one lunch hour in early June 1996. I remember it very well. My husband, at the time, had just been admitted to hospital. I think it was a Tuesday. He had been increasingly and gravely ill with no diagnosis. That morning, in Emergency, a horrible doctor abruptly grunted three cryptic sentences to us:

1. “Addison’s Disease/Schmidt's Syndrome.”  

2. “Very rare”. 

3. “We’re admitting him.” 

And with that, he exited the room. Feeling a little overwhelmed and puzzled by that information, I was on the 20 minute drive home to make lunch for my kids when I got a phone call from my oldest son.  

Mitch: “There’s a guy at the door.”

Me (annoyed): “What guy?  

Mitch:  “I don’t know”

Me:  “What do you mean you don’t know? What’s his name?”

Mitch: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Ask him please.” 
I hear muffled voices then he comes back on the phone.

Mitch: “He says his name is Rod. He says he’s our grandfather.”

Dread flooded my body then bad words ran through my brain. What I said was: “You can let him in. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

At the moment where I was trying to tell my kids that their dad was being hospitalized, that he had a disease I knew nothing about at the moment but I’m sure things would be fine, was this person sitting at my table, intruding on a moment  he had no right to be a part of. It was my step-dad. Carolyn’s husband. I fed my kids, sent them back to school then sat down to have a conversation that was ill-timed, unwanted, and inconsiderate given where my world was at. He had come to plead Carolyn’s case. He told me that I needed to contact her and forgive her. Then he dropped a bomb. He told me that she never meant to abandon me or leave me for Granny and Grandad to raise. When I was 5 years old, they had seriously considered taking me back and bringing me to live with them in Calgary. 

My heart stopped. My head nearly exploded. 

Brain matter all over my kitchen walls.  

The trajectory of my life, had that happened, would have been much different. Perilously different. Disastrously different. It would’ve been one of the worst case scenarios for me. I always felt that if I had been raised by my mother, I would have been dead in the gutter by age 16. All my life I have never felt as though anyone had my back. But as hard as my story has been, it could have been so much worse. God had my back. He placed me - and kept me - where I would meet grace and love and acceptance and faith. A place where there would be hope and strength and safety. Earlier this year I received a Facebook friend request from someone calling themselves CJ Moore. I clicked on the picture to see who this person was and staring back at me was an older woman, with a small, tight semblance of a smile on her face. She looked annoyed that her picture was being taken at all, yet she obviously had deemed it suitable enough to make her profile picture. I wasn’t sure, but thought this woman was my mother. I hadn’t laid eyes on her since Christmas of 1988, the year Granny died. 28 years. I hadn’t spoken to her since the early 90’s, prior to Grandad dying. (Side note: When Grandad died, it was not Carolyn that called me. It was my aunt. She said they would be in touch as to when a funeral service would be planned. I never heard from anyone ever again until that day Rod showed up in my kitchen).  

I scrolled through her pictures on Facebook and found one of her and a younger woman sitting on the edge of a fountain. Las Vegas I suppose. I zoomed in and I knew without a doubt, this was Carolyn with my youngest half-sister. I continued to look through the pictures on their Facebook pages, finding my other half-sister’s pictures as well. All I could feel was dread and heaviness. As I looked at the pictures and events they had posted, which included one of my half-sisters wedding, I couldn’t help but notice a theme. They all looked miserable. My Father rescued me from this.  

Despite everything, I can declare confidently, that I’ve been lucky. I am lucky to be loved like this by a Father, who made me - designed me - beautiful, smart and strong, and placed me in this life and gave me JOY. In spite of every challenge, every wound, every mis-step, it was the best life. A life I am so thankful for.