Twice Adopted (Part 2)

Di's tots, 1993
daughter-3, son-6

My two wee tots kept me hoppin' the next two years or so. Then I started having the mysterious dreams. A recurring one was of me in an over-crowded restaurant.  A man would walk past me, and I would suddenly realize it was my father!  I would try to catch up to him, but someone would always get in my way!  I would call him, but he couldn't hear me. He wouldn't turn around! I never saw his face. He just kept getting farther away...out of reach, out of sight. I would wake up sobbing sometimes.

A memory/dream that I'd had all my life started replaying in my mind. My baby brother and I were anxiously waiting for Mom to get home from work.  I was about four years old.  It was weird, because one afternoon, instead of seeing her car come around the corner, she was walking. She was with a man, he had his arm around her. She had a coral dress on and was barefoot, carrying her heels.  That image was in my mind my entire life! I didn't know why.  Then it hit me. I DID have an actual memory of my father. He came to town after they'd been separated for almost a year. HE was the man in that memory. It was so significant to me because I hadn't seen him in all those months, and it was also the last time I saw him.

I realized later that this delayed grief truly started was when my own little girl was three.  It was plain to see what a close bond she had with her Daddy. Sometime later, I was trying to explain all this to someone, and to myself. I said "This grief came to me. I didn't ask for it, I didn't expect it. I didn't create it in my head. It was a strange, unwelcome visitor that came to stay for a while." But it had to be dealt with.  Now I see that visitor as a gift, because of all I learned.  

I felt compelled to try to find him. I tried so hard to do it without big expectations, to stay realistic about the unknown future of this search!  I did have a fantasy built up in my mind about meeting him, but tried to remember it was just that: a fantasy. Then I tried to balance that out with my worst fears of rejection, of possibly never finding him, etc.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2009/12/12/lisa-joyners-personal-journey-on-find-my-family/

My Mom prayed with me for God's guidance. She gave me the boxes of old pictures. She contacted some of my father's relatives who might be willing to help us locate him. Remember, I was thirty years old when I began this earnest search for him. She got the address and phone number of his first cousin, R., who was about his age. They (Mom, Father and R.) had grown up together.  She told me that R. was one of the kindest people she'd ever known.  I learned later that she was so right. 

A side note here about the pictures. In that box I found a photo that made me literally gasp when I first saw it! It was one of my father's brothers, taken when he was about thirteen. He looked like my twin at the same age!  Unless you've experienced it, you really can't understand how surreal it is to find a pic of someone who looks exactly like you, but they are a complete stranger...out there, somewhere.

I knew that DJ (my father's initials, and I how often referred to him) was out there, somewhere too.  After months of  troubling dreams and many tears and fears, I was about to get a very unexpected answer. 

To be continued....