Happy Adoption Reunion Story - Meeting Birth Father
My biological father had been supportive of mom during her pregnancy, but she chose not to marry him. I was placed in foster care and adopted by the Love family just after I turned one year old.
The social worker asked if getting learning this satisfied my need or if I still wanted to meet my parents. While the information was enlightening, I very much wanted to meet my parents. I particularly wanted to meet my mother to tell her I had had a wonderful life and to let her know that whatever anguish she went through in surrendering me had well paid off for me.
I needed her to know my life had turned out. I wanted to hug her and feel her heart beat again.
The social worker said she’d write the university to ask for their last addresses and would contact me when she heard from them. A few weeks later, she called me and said that the school had responded, but that they had declined to release any contact information. They promised to forward the agency’s letter to the last addresses they had for my parents and leave it up to them as to whether or not they responded.
More weeks go by. One afternoon the social worker called and said my father had called her! He was ecstatic and wanted to talk with me. Apparently, he had lost touch with my mother when she left school and didn’t know where he could find me. She asked if I was ready to talk to him. I tentatively said, “Yes”. She then asked if wanted to call him or if I wanted him to call me. I thought it might be easier to be surprised with a phone call than to have to initiate one, so I said “He should call me”.
The next day, he called me at work. He was delirious with excitement! He‘d heard I’d been born 30 years ago, but wasn’t sure if I were a boy or girl. He said he’d been featured in Ebony magazine as one of the Eligible Bachelors in 1966 and suggested I go to the library to find a copy. I rushed down to Chicago’s main public library, scanned many rolls of microfiche and eventually found the edition he was in.
The write-up on Mansefield Adonis Ready was favorable, but I didn’t think I looked much like him. Over the next several weeks, we exchanged many phone calls and letters. He called me at odd hours and sometimes seemed to not make much sense. He had his sister and her sons to call me and we set up a reunion meeting for the upcoming Thanksgiving in Oakland, CA near where they lived.
I continued to be inundated with calls and letters from him, sometimes more than I wanted. However, after not having any blood relatives, I wasn’t ready to shut down the communication. A couple of days prior to my departure for the reunion, my aunt called. She explained that my father was very happy to have me back in his life. However, she said that he had a drinking problem. “Aha! That explains his erratic behavior”, I thought to myself. I’d never been around anyone who drank and didn’t recognize the symptoms.
While my appearance seemed to quiet him down, Doris couldn’t be certain that the excitement of meeting me would be enough to keep him dry. The day before Thanksgiving, I flew to Oakland. As I walked through the terminal, I saw two short brown men approaching me. One looked rather dapper, the second, rather disheveled. My instincts told me the second one was my father. They approached me smiling and the disheveled one hugged and kissed me right on the mouth! I could smell the liquor on his breath. I thought, “This is going to be a long weekend.”
We reached his sister’s home where I’d be staying for the weekend. She was happy and welcoming…to me. My father was clearly getting the cold shoulder from her. Doris told me more about our family and over the course of the weekend, I met cousins, nieces and nephews and family friends. All said wonderful things about my father, referring to the life he had enjoyed before the alcohol took hold.
Over the next several years, dad and I had a pleasant relationship. He slipped in and out of sobriety. When he was sober, he was wonderful. When not, he was kind, but disorganized and lost. He did however, give me a picture of my mother from their days in college. Chills ran through my body when I first saw her. Even though the description of her I received from the agency sounded like me, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. We had the same high cheekbones, same skinny legs, same thin arms, same short-high waists, small breasts, broad hips and big, big toes. And our smiles! It was like looking in a mirror through a time machine.
Dad had attempted to connect me with people he thought might know Marjorie’s whereabouts. But either they didn’t know, or didn’t want to say. I tried to contact her. I called the alumni office of the college we had all attended. As it turned out (talk about miracles) the woman who answered the phone had lived in my dorm 10 years earlier and remembered me! When I told her my story, she got inspired and said “I’ll help you find her.”
The social worker asked if getting learning this satisfied my need or if I still wanted to meet my parents. While the information was enlightening, I very much wanted to meet my parents. I particularly wanted to meet my mother to tell her I had had a wonderful life and to let her know that whatever anguish she went through in surrendering me had well paid off for me.
I needed her to know my life had turned out. I wanted to hug her and feel her heart beat again.
The social worker said she’d write the university to ask for their last addresses and would contact me when she heard from them. A few weeks later, she called me and said that the school had responded, but that they had declined to release any contact information. They promised to forward the agency’s letter to the last addresses they had for my parents and leave it up to them as to whether or not they responded.
More weeks go by. One afternoon the social worker called and said my father had called her! He was ecstatic and wanted to talk with me. Apparently, he had lost touch with my mother when she left school and didn’t know where he could find me. She asked if I was ready to talk to him. I tentatively said, “Yes”. She then asked if wanted to call him or if I wanted him to call me. I thought it might be easier to be surprised with a phone call than to have to initiate one, so I said “He should call me”.
The next day, he called me at work. He was delirious with excitement! He‘d heard I’d been born 30 years ago, but wasn’t sure if I were a boy or girl. He said he’d been featured in Ebony magazine as one of the Eligible Bachelors in 1966 and suggested I go to the library to find a copy. I rushed down to Chicago’s main public library, scanned many rolls of microfiche and eventually found the edition he was in.
The write-up on Mansefield Adonis Ready was favorable, but I didn’t think I looked much like him. Over the next several weeks, we exchanged many phone calls and letters. He called me at odd hours and sometimes seemed to not make much sense. He had his sister and her sons to call me and we set up a reunion meeting for the upcoming Thanksgiving in Oakland, CA near where they lived.
I continued to be inundated with calls and letters from him, sometimes more than I wanted. However, after not having any blood relatives, I wasn’t ready to shut down the communication. A couple of days prior to my departure for the reunion, my aunt called. She explained that my father was very happy to have me back in his life. However, she said that he had a drinking problem. “Aha! That explains his erratic behavior”, I thought to myself. I’d never been around anyone who drank and didn’t recognize the symptoms.
While my appearance seemed to quiet him down, Doris couldn’t be certain that the excitement of meeting me would be enough to keep him dry. The day before Thanksgiving, I flew to Oakland. As I walked through the terminal, I saw two short brown men approaching me. One looked rather dapper, the second, rather disheveled. My instincts told me the second one was my father. They approached me smiling and the disheveled one hugged and kissed me right on the mouth! I could smell the liquor on his breath. I thought, “This is going to be a long weekend.”
We reached his sister’s home where I’d be staying for the weekend. She was happy and welcoming…to me. My father was clearly getting the cold shoulder from her. Doris told me more about our family and over the course of the weekend, I met cousins, nieces and nephews and family friends. All said wonderful things about my father, referring to the life he had enjoyed before the alcohol took hold.
Over the next several years, dad and I had a pleasant relationship. He slipped in and out of sobriety. When he was sober, he was wonderful. When not, he was kind, but disorganized and lost. He did however, give me a picture of my mother from their days in college. Chills ran through my body when I first saw her. Even though the description of her I received from the agency sounded like me, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. We had the same high cheekbones, same skinny legs, same thin arms, same short-high waists, small breasts, broad hips and big, big toes. And our smiles! It was like looking in a mirror through a time machine.
Dad had attempted to connect me with people he thought might know Marjorie’s whereabouts. But either they didn’t know, or didn’t want to say. I tried to contact her. I called the alumni office of the college we had all attended. As it turned out (talk about miracles) the woman who answered the phone had lived in my dorm 10 years earlier and remembered me! When I told her my story, she got inspired and said “I’ll help you find her.”
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