I don’t remember my parents being married or acting like a married couple. But I didn’t understand they were divorced, either. No one told me, thinking I was too young to understand. One of the earliest memories I have, though, is of Dad sleeping downstairs in our family room. I was about five years old….
“I wasn’t ever going to tell you.” Those were Mom’s first words after I sat down with her and told her what I knew. Her words stung. It was the only time I could remember having a flash of anger towards her. Really?? One year, ten months, and six days after I sat in my…
In 1996, I was a full-time stay-at-home Mom to our three young daughters, all under 6. I turned 31 years old that year. Fred and I were married in 1988, and we bought a house in the same town where we both grew up. We hadn’t planned it that way, but we just really loved…
It was September 15, 2016. Eighteen months since I discovered my Dad wasn’t my Dad. I still hadn’t told anyone my secret, not even my husband. I know that sounds crazy. I hadn’t confronted my mother with my discovery yet, either. Looking back, I know there’s a term for how I wasn’t dealing with it….
Surprisingly, I wasn’t anxious to find out who my biological father was because, with every passing day, I felt in my gut that I already knew who it was. I was bouncing all around through those stages of grief, and depression was a big one now. Long-forgotten memories started to slowly become conscious ones. When…
After discovering I was an NPE, I wanted to look at my mother’s life. I wanted to understand her more. My mother hated the name Martha Lee. She lived her life avoiding it whenever she could. I remember my grandmother sometimes calling her M.L. Mom felt M.L. was much better than the grating “Maaatha Lee”…