How I felt when my birth father died
By: Laurie Livingston Nave
Tags: Self-awareness, Grief, Death And Dying, Compassion, Life Lessons

“We were talking the other night, and I searched for Peter. I found out he died a couple of years ago. I wasn’t sure if you knew.”

I received the above text from my ex-husband. My kids told me a few days later that they had been discussing the movie, Madagascar, and my birth father's name had come up in conversation. My ex got curious, and he discovered the obituary via Google.

I am adopted, and while other people may consider that a curse, I have always considered it a blessing. My parents are awesome people, and I was raised well with plenty of love. Honestly, I never really had much curiosity about my biological beginnings. I remember talking with someone about being adopted in college. They asked me, “Do you know where your mom is?” I answered, “She’s at work.” I didn’t even realize the person was referring to my birth mother.

After the birth of my second child, I agreed to have my tubes tied, and while they were doing that, they found two large tumors/cysts. Thankfully, they were benign, but the doctor indicated it would be helpful to know more about my biological family’s medical history. So for the first time, I actively wondered about my biological heritage.

My ex had been curious for a while, and although what I wanted was just a paper filled with medical information and not necessarily a meeting, he was hoping to find both of them and meet them. And since he was unemployed, he had lots of time to search. I was somewhat ambivalent, but he told me that having something to focus on helped him not to be as depressed about losing his job. Honestly, I didn’t see how he would find them. We only had my name at birth and the hospital at which I was born.

I’ll skip the long and winding process, but my ex did actually find them both. He found my birth father first, and then my birth mother. I ended up meeting both of them, though obviously not at the same time. I still occasionally speak with my birth mother. I spoke with my birth father several times, and I met him twice. However, once he realized he would not be able to convert me to his denomination, he lost interest.

Even though I can see myself in photos of him, I never really felt that mythical Lifetime Movie instant bound with either of my birth parents.

I wasn’t sure how to feel when I learned that he had died. Even though I can see myself in photos of him, I never really felt that mythical Lifetime Movie instant bound with either of my birth parents. Some gaping abyss was not magically filled…because I had no abyss. So I wasn’t grief-stricken. I honestly wasn’t sure what to feel.

This was, in part, because my birth father wasn’t what most would call a great guy.

Let me explain. My birth father, who I’ll call Peter, met my birth mother, who I’ll call Kathryn, in 1967. Kathryn was attending a university, and Peter was doing some sort of course or professional development there. They met and had a spring/summer romance. Kathryn got pregnant.

When she told Peter, he shared a little tidbit that he had neglected to tell her before: he was married. She was devastated and heartbroken and ashamed. He left the university, basically saying, “sucks for you,” and went back to his wife and three children. Kathryn was not his first dalliance, and she would not be his last.

Around 8 weeks before I was born, Kathryn needed a place to stay. She had already decided to give me up for adoption, but she did not have anywhere to go, having left the home of the family she was living with for the first part of her pregnancy. You see, her parents were very strict missionaries of their denomination, and she was afraid to tell them she was pregnant.

She tracked down Peter, and he agreed she could live with him at a boarding house as long as she did not put her name on the birth certificate. She agreed. While she stayed with him, he would often spend his evenings on the phone with his current mistress, the one who his wife and his denomination found out about. He was relieved of his parochial school duties and was working a government job. He left the boarding house three weeks before I was born, leaving my birth mother to fend for herself.

It turns out that when he divorced his first wife, he took custody of the youngest of their children and left the older two with her. The youngest child was more like him, so he wanted that one, but not the others. He ended up working outside his church for a while after leaving the boarding house. He fell in love with the mistress he had, but he couldn’t stop thinking about my birth mother. Maybe he had been wrong to leave the woman who had his child.

A year after I was born and being raised by my parents, Peter found Kathryn and asked her to dinner. He apologized, told her he was moving out of the country to run a denominational school, and he told her that he wanted to marry again. Basically he couldn’t choose between Kathryn and the mistress, and he was giving Kathryn first choice. If she said yes, he promised they would find me, reverse the adoption, and be a family. Kathryn told him, in her own words, to go to hell.

I remember feeling sick when she told me this story. I am so so thankful she rejected him. I cannot imagine being ripped from my parents to be raised by him. And people’s obsession with DNA being what it is, there is no doubt he would have won a case. It still makes me shudder.

The first time I met Peter, he took me to dinner. We had invited him to our home, but he wanted to spend time with just me rather than my husband and children. I heard his side of the tale, including the story of his long marriage to the mistress, who dies in an accident, his short marriage to someone else, and his current marriage to his 4th wife, a woman from the village where he had moved. It was in Madagascar.

He told me bluntly that they married because she had a young son and needed his protection, and he had “needs as a man.” Who tells their 30-year-old long lost daughter about his “needs”? Yeesh!

As I mentioned, we lost touch after I did not convert, and I really didn’t know much about his life except that at some point he had retired and moved back to the states. And then he died. He was around 80 years old. Including me, he had five children and one stepchild.

It would have been easy for me to even think “good riddance.” He never did anything for me, I didn’t really know him, and, let’s face it, he was kind of a douche.

It would have been easy for me to roll my eyes. It would have been easy to delete the text and think, “who cares?” It would have been easy for me to even think “good riddance.” He never did anything for me, I didn’t really know him, and, let’s face it, he was kind of a douche.

But I had seen pictures of his family. He had restored his relationship with his oldest children, he was very close to his son, and he was close to his later children. I believe the woman he married in Madagascar truly loved him. That meant at least 8 people were mourning the loss of a loved one. At least 8 people grieved at his graveside and felt the hole in their lives where he used to be.

The only thing my snark over his death would do was to reveal some serious personal issues and character flaws in me. I was conceived in betrayal. But I was conceived. I wouldn’t exist had he and Kathryn not had a relationship. Had he not been a coward when he found out she was pregnant, Kathryn might not have given me up for adoption. I had and have a great life and loving parents. I can’t imagine not having them.

So I prayed for his family. I searched my heart for any unforgiveness that might be there and let go of that. I thanked God that His promises found in places like Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11 were true. And I wished Peter well. He hurt some people, but his work in the school in Madagascar also helped many people. Like every single human walking the earth, including me, he was a complex combination of goodness and imperfections.

In the play Julius Caesar, Marc Antony says in his famous speech:

The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

In case your interpretation of literature is rusty, Marc Antony did not mean that phrase as a compliment, but as an indictment. The idea that we are only as valuable as our greatest failure might be a “natural” human response, but it is also a very insensitive and flawed one.

Peter was many things besides the married guy who left my birth mother high and dry. He had people in his life who loved and mourned him. And just like there will be people who can list my flaws after I am gone, there were probably already enough people doing that to him.

I chose compassion and humanity. And I still do. After all, I exist with his nose and his height and his blue eyes because he existed. And while I am certain there are people who are not thrilled about that, there are a whole lot of people who are glad I’m around. And they are the ones I love and the ones who matter.