Becoming A Daughter: My Journey Of Finding A Father

Father’s Day is June 20th this year, and it will be the first time I get to celebrate my own biological father after 42 years of not knowing him, or him knowing about me – and I have no idea how this is supposed to look.

I was raised by a single mom and the only father I knew was in and out of our lives. He struggled with depression and drug addiction for a long time and unfortunately lost his battle by taking his own life when I was 23 years old.

His death hurt more than I could imagine. I struggled for months afterward with nightmares, regret, and a deep feeling that loss and death were constantly harassing me. At least when he was alive, there was hope. Hope for him to be healed, hope for reconciliation, hope that one day we would have the father we always needed.

Then I had my own child. She was born exactly one year after the date of his death: A God wink that took a day that I dreaded and made it one of the best of my life. Family, ancestry, and connections all became extremely important to me where dysfunction and division had once predominantly dictated my familial relationships.

I had another child; another reminder of legacy. Then I got divorced and remarried. Fatherhood had become a constant conversation in our home as my husband and I learned how to co-parent with our exes and strived to be the healthiest parents we could be.

Our foundation of parenthood had some major gaps and we wanted to end the destructive cycles and bring healing to our family line. My husband lost his father when he was 7 years old, and was subsequently raised by an aunt and uncle with no contact from his mother after he was 13 years old. To find answers and help we went to the Word, the church, and sought to learn how to parent the way God desired.

Despite our efforts to be better parents, I still struggled with a lack of worth and identity. I could not figure out how to apply God’s truth to myself. I began to feel that I could read every parenting book and learn every technique, but there was something pivotal about identity that my kids would need. If I didn’t know who I really was, how could I give them the tools they would need to end the curses that had plagued us for generations?

Years passed and the need for the whole story -my whole story- increased.

I had to be honest that there was a truth that I was evading. The man who I believed was my father my whole life, may not have been my real father after all. Years before, around middle school, my mother confided to me that there was a chance he wasn’t my biological father. Maybe she shared the truth to help me understand the abuse, neglect, and sense of abandonment. Maybe she figured I was as ready as I was ever going to be for this news. Either way, it was a revelation that I wanted to hide from, though secretly I was not surprised by it. Despite the revelation, my truth to that point was that man was my dad. Otherwise, that made my sister only a half-sister. But my sister is my whole sister – and my sister meant the world to me.

As a part of my journey for identity, I signed up for Ancestry DNA testing to see what my genetic makeup was. I appear so racially ambiguous it’s like a game every time someone asks me where I’m from. Mostly, I was hoping this DNA test would help fill in the gaps in my identity, and would help me find the wholeness I was so desperate for.

I got answers immediately – many I did not anticipate. I learned my genetic makeup, and confirmed that the man I’d always called my dad was not, in fact, my blood relative. I informed my mother and she reminded me about our conversation years earlier.

Initially, my mother gave me the name of a man who could have been my father. My husband did some searching and the only man who matched the details I had was deceased. Hopelessness continued to harass me. I began to ask God to remove my desire for a father and to heal my heart.

I thought about those children who’ve been adopted and never knew either birth parent, and I believed I was blessed to have a connection to at least one of my parents.

Then a couple years later something crazy happened. Ancestry added a new feature revealing people you could be related to. Up to this point I thought the man my mother had told me stories about was my actual dad, and I was trying to make peace with an over-romanticized story and an overactive imagination.

The last name of the man and the names of my newly discovered relatives were oddly similar. I teased my mom that she couldn’t remember the name of a childhood crush, but really I was about to be hit with another shocker.

There was a third man she hadn’t told me about before. After a traumatic experience before I was conceived, she had made some out-of-character choices in her efforts to cope. I began an unhealthy obsession with paternity court and tried to dig through Ancestry for more clues.

I lived vicariously through those looking for their own fathers and fathers looking for their children, trying to imagine what he would be like and what confirming that truth would feel like.

It was 2 years of waiting, praying, giving up, starting again, inner healing, and frustration until I received a message on Ancestry that would allow me to tell my story to someone who could help. I finally made a connection with a first cousin who was kind enough to reply to my attempts at a conversation.

And just when I was ready to give up again… I got a text message.

The message from my cousin read “Hope you are doing well. I just wanted to let you know that my uncle (your dad) now knows and does not dispute the truth. So it is confirmed.” He literally said the words “your dad”. Words I had given up on – an idea that I never thought was possible after so much time and so much heartache.

Family, I tried to press pause – to acknowledge what I felt. But I just threw the phone like a hot potato and began to weep.

I finally found my father. I was in shock. I almost didn’t want to talk to him. I think deep down I wished he wouldn’t call, so I wouldn’t have to love someone new. So I wouldn’t have to feel bad about not being able to fit someone else into our already complicated family life. But all that wasn’t true – we love generously and always have room for more people to love on. The truth was I didn’t think I could handle any more rejection.

This journey has been humbling, scary, amazing, and wondrous. I found relatives who are strong, artistic, hardworking, creative, intelligent, loving and kinda crazy – just like me. I found out where I get my hairline and my love for reading from…

I found my father.

And while I still don’t know exactly what all this is supposed to look or feel like for me, I can’t even imagine what this is like for him. He missed out on so much life – my first steps, high school graduation, the births of my children, helping me heal from heart breaks, and the rest of the tough things I’ve survived. But I’m reminded that with this revelation comes new opportunities for relationship and for making the wrong things right.

For those men out there who may not be in your child’s life, please know: your child doesn’t care about what job you have, who you know or the material things you possess. Your child just needs and wants you - at any age - and it is never too late.

We just want to know that there is someone cheering us on in life. Praying for and wishing the best for us, while desiring to share adventures along the way – for me, those are some of the best things any parent can do.

Ultimately, I share this deeply personal journey because as we celebrate Father’s Day this year, I wanted you to know - whether you have THE BEST dad in the world, or he has passed on, or you don’t know who your father is... you are loved by your Father in Heaven who knew you when He formed you in your mother’s womb. He knew what you would be up against, and He knew that you would still risk loving others, regardless of whether your affection was accepted or rejected.

You are loved, you are known, and you are precious – so celebrate this Father’s Day knowing that you belong and are a part of God’s family, and as a bonus, the 1Love family.