I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday with a new eye doctor. I was nervous. He is a specialist. Nine years ago, at age 50, when I discovered my Dad who raised me was not my biological father, one of the realities that struck me was that half the health history I had been sharing with…
“I fully expect you to say no,” my fellow *NPE friend Bill Griffeth wrote to me in a Twitter message in the fall of 2018. What he expected me to say no to was being interviewed about my NPE story. He knew what an introvert I was. But he knew from his own experience that…
For several years after I found out I wasn’t my Dad’s biological daughter, I couldn’t even look at his tree anymore. It was literally a full stop. Seeing all the people I thought I came from genuinely hurt my heart. It was like breaking up with someone you love. I started doing genealogy when I…
When people hear my story, they all react differently. There is sympathy, most definitely. There is shock, especially if they knew me as a kid. There is a curiosity to hear all the sordid details, which is completely normal. Overall, I think it’s human nature to want to say something comforting or uplifting when you…
I’m asked, “What has actually changed since my DNA discovery?” Do you mean besides the whole “losing my entire identity” thing? Well, here’s one at the top of my list. I have no full siblings anymore. It’s profound, and it’s sad for me. It’s a feeling of loss that I can’t put into words. I…
After my mother died, I didn’t have to keep my DNA discovery secret from my brothers and sisters any longer. The thought of telling them they were Dad’s biological kids, but I wasn’t, made me so scared that it made me physically sick. Scared was a new feeling in this discovery. I also cried a…